


City of Shadows

by Siavahda



Series: Runed [1]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Clary is a Lewis, F/M, M/M, Millennium Lint rocks, Simon is a Fray, Slash, Slow Build, Universe Alteration, attempted snark, singer!Simon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:15:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 247,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Or is he?” Jace asked softly. The velvety murmur was worse than Isabelle’s snapping or Alec’s frustration, and he still hadn’t looked away from Simon. “Have you had dealings with demons, little boy? Walked with warlocks, talked with the Night Children? Have you – ”</p><p>“Did you run out of alliteration?” Simon interrupted. “ ‘Night Children’ – what is that, vampires, probably, could you not think of any verbs beginning with v? Verbalize, vent, venerate, vacuum – that’s a good one, <i>have you vacuumed with vampires – ”</i></p><p>When Simon Fray follows a blue haired boy into a storage room, he has no idea how weird his life is about to get. Mortal Instruments rewrite. Eventual Jimon.</p><p>Watch the trailer here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAWe779Qh6k</p><p>  <b>1ST PLACE All-Time Favorite Mortal Instruments Fanfic in 2015 Fanatic Fanfics Multifandom Awards!</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starry_nights88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starry_nights88/gifts).



> I lay the credit (read: the blame) squarely at Cassie aka starry_nights88's feet. She got me into this pairing, and she's also the best beta a writer could ask for. This one's totally for you, Cassie!
> 
> Unless otherwise stated in the notes, none of the songs Millennium Lint play are written by me. The names and artists responsible for each song will be named in each chapter's notes. If you like them, go buy their music! :D
> 
> There should be a new chapter every week (and probably quite a few over the next few days) but I can't swear to post on a set day every week.

   “Oh my _God_ ,” Clary gasped as they pulled up, “You’re playing _here?!_ ”

   Simon grinned, excitement pooling in his fingers and stomach as he switched off the engine. “Pretty cool, huh?” He’d been waiting for this reaction since learning they had a gig at Clary’s favourite club.

   She punched his arm, but she was grinning back at him. “You _think?_ And here I thought you didn’t like it here. God, I’m so proud of you!”

   There was no line in front of the performer’s entrance of Pandemonium, but the alley was scattered with people come outside for a smoke or a hook-up. Simon conscientiously averted his eyes from the handful of kissing couples as he texted his bandmates to come help unload the van.

   Clary watched him. “Do you think they’ll hear their phones over the music?” she asked doubtfully.

   Simon shrugged as he pocketed his phone. “They’d better. I’m not carrying Eric’s drum set in by myself!”

*

   _What am I doing here?_

   This was not Millennium Lint’s usual crowd. Hell, this was the first time there’d ever _been_ a crowd; playing in basements and the Alto Bar did not prepare one for the dry-ice fog and the LSD lights of Pandemonium, and now that Simon was actually standing on the stage, he was starting to rethink the part where this was a good idea.

   Eric clapped him on the back. “You ready for this?” he asked cheerfully.

   Simon debated the likelihood of his friends having any clothes he could borrow: his MADE IN BROOKLYN t-shirt suddenly had him feeling underdressed. There were people here with blue hair, for crying out loud! They wouldn’t want his weird brand of humour! “Um, I think so?”

   “That’s the spirit!”

   Simon brushed the strings of his bass as Eric went to check on the others. _Deep breaths, Simon,_ he told himself. His glasses slipped down his nose a little, and he pushed them back up absently. _You’re in a real club, with a real band. You’re good. You know you’re good. Don’t screw up and tonight could be the start of a beautiful relationship with Fame._

   He saw Eric talking to the manager and felt adrenalin coiling sickly in his gut.

   _Deep breaths,_ he reminded himself.

   “On in five,” Eric mouthed at him, returning to the stage. Matt and Kirk exchanged grins in the corner of Simon’s vision; Simon tightened his grip on his bass and breathed.

   _You can do this._

   It felt like no time at all before the club’s music wound down, stilling the dancers as if someone had pressed pause. The lights swung towards the stage, calling everyone’s attention to the band there, and – yeah, okay, that was nerve-wracking, all those curious/expectant eyes turned on him. _Wow_. For a split second Simon was overwhelmed by the wash of colour, the strange-cool clothing, the flash of conspicuous piercings in lips and eyebrows. _Don’t those hurt?_

   Then he remembered himself, and stepped up to the mike in front of him. His eyes found Clary in the crowd – she was beaming – and he talked directly to her, blocking out everyone else.

   “Hey guys,” his voice boomed out through the room. It felt unreal, separate from him, so that it was easier to slide a little deeper into the semi-cool persona of a bass player. “We’re Millennium Lint, and we have something to say: let us entertain you!”

   A ripple of laughter flowed through the crowd at the Queen reference. Simon grinned and glanced at the others, who nodded at him: they were ready, had been ready for weeks, they knew just what to do.

   _Here goes nothing_ , Simon thought. His fingers found the opening chords of _Make a Move_ , the music unwound like a roll of silk, and he opened his mouth and sang.

“ _Test my reality_  
 _Check-if-there's-a-weak, spot,_  
 _Clingin' to insanity_  
 _In hopes the world will ease up,_

  
_Try to make it look like it's all somehow getting better,  
'Cause I know how to play it pretty good against the measure..._ ”

*

   They. Went. _Nuts._

   _They like me, they really like me!_ Simon laughed to himself as the crowd danced themselves into a frenzy, hypnotised by the magic Simon and his friends wove with their instruments and voices. There was no real lightshow – there hadn’t been time to try and create one, even if Millennium Lint had known the first thing about lights, which they didn’t – but they didn’t need one: Pandemonium’s fairyland colours were more than enough, flashing and strobing as if they’d all been whisked away to some other world, some other planet with multi-coloured stars streaking past the stage. Simon felt juiced, electric and powerful and jubilant; his fingers never slipped, his voice never stuttered, and the words seemed to just flow out, never forgotten or mixed up.

“ _Listen_ up _, listen_ up!  
 _There's a devil in the church,  
 _Got a bullet in the chamber  
 _And~ this is gonna hurt! ”___

   Clary was dancing. No surprise there – everyone was – but it gave Simon a special thrill to see her with her head thrown back to his music – to the sound he was creating, the magic he was weaving with fingers and voice.

   _Magic words_ , he thought, grinning, and slid Millennium Lint into the song he’d written especially for tonight, thinking that this crowd would appreciate it;

“ _It's time to feel~ the beat in my skin,_  
 _The people keep on beg~ging me to give in,_  
 _To the way~ that they want to move,_  
 _Too many people trying to tell you what to do –_

I'm _not, gonna tell you to dance,  
Just gonna keep, on, doing my thing,  
_ I'm _not, gonna tell you to move,_  
 _Just gonna keep on playing the, way I'm playing –_

 

_Don't dance, don't dance, don't dance, don't dance  
_ Don't _dance,_ don't _dance,_ don't _dance,_ don't _dance –_ ”

   No surprise that they loved this one – he’d poured so much feeling into writing it, trying to capture the transient emotions music evoked in him: the freedom of creating, the high of a good performance (even in a basement where nobody could hear you), the wild euphoria that was adrenalin and excitement and pride all mixed together into a glittering cocktail. His face and hair were wet with sweat and he didn’t care, barely noticed; he swung forward into the mike and sang, mocking and inviting the crowd in on the joke;

“ _This isn't an apology,_  
 _Just some reverse psychology_  
 _'Cause-if-I-tell-you-not-to-do-something then I can guarantee...”_

   He smirked, feeling wicked and wild. “ ** _You'll do it_**.”

   They went ape, the girls and a good number of the guys as well as he purred out the words. It wasn’t the drowning roar of an audience at a real concert, but a heck of a mental high-five nonetheless.

   It was _so unbelievably awesome_.

*

   They took a break after _Don’t Dance_. Simon didn’t realise how thirsty he was until he lowered his bass to its stand; his throat was a little sore from all the enthusiastic singing, but God, he felt like he was on top of the world. This must be how Superman felt the first time he saved the world.

   _And this is how he felt with Lois Lane_ , he thought a minute later as Clary attacked him with a hug.

   “You guys were amazing!” she yelled over the music (which had come back on when the band announced their break). “I’ve never heard you play so well!”

   Simon grinned sheepishly. Without his bass in hand – without the mike – he could feel his _cool_ slipping away, like water between his fingers. “I’m really glad you enjoyed it!” he shouted back. “I’m going to get a drink, do you want anything?”

   “A coke would be great!”

   With a nod, Simon began making his way through the crowd. At first it was a quest of nearly epic proportions – the place was packed as tightly as a can of sardines, and for a minute or two he thought there would be no reaching the bar. But then someone recognised him as from the band, and then another, and then there were dozens of people congratulating and complimenting him, happily moving out of his way. It was dizzying, the blur of people and voices; he could barely hear anyone and only had fleeting impressions of what they were saying, and with the lights and the height of the crowd he suddenly realised he’d gotten completely turned around. When he shoved his way out of the pack, he noticed, with a slight sinking of heart, that he was on completely the wrong side of the room.

   He didn’t relish the thought of pushing his way through again, and looked around to see if there were any vending machines or something on this side. It was a faint hope, but he clung to it, peering through the fog and the lights for some source of liquid nourishment.

   Which was when he spotted... _them_.

   His eyes were so used to the rainbow of colour that seeing a boy with blue hair didn’t even register. What drew his eyes back was the way Blue Hair was walking; graceful, but somehow reminiscent of a hunting animal – maybe a wolf – stalking prey. It was so out of place with the other happily dancing teenagers that he frowned, confused; it looked...sinister. Worrying.

   Simon’s concern spiked when he followed Blue Hair’s gaze to a – really _beautiful_ girl in a white dress. She looked like the kind of figure Clary might like to draw, a fairytale princess – hair black as night and skin white as snow, that kind of thing.

   But she was smiling at Blue Hair, and Simon looked away sharply, feeling his cheeks warm. None of his business, he thought firmly, and was about to risk the crowd again when he saw a glint of light in the corner of his eye.

   When he turned back, he realised that what he had thought was a plastic stake in Blue Hair’s hand was actually a long, sharp knife.

   For a second, Simon just stared, unable to believe his eyes. A _knife?_ What – why would anyone bring a knife to a club?

   _I have to get security,_ he thought suddenly, but the girl was slipping into a room marked NO ADMITTANCE and Blue Hair was following her and there wasn’t – there wasn’t _time_ –

   _Shit shit shit_. Simon scrabbled for his phone and fired off a text to Clary, trying to walk towards the room and text at the same time. _Gy w/ knif in no admin room_ _get scurty!_ Hoping that was understandable, he shoved the phone in his pocket and broke into a run.

   “Hey!” he shouted, as loudly as he could as he slammed the door open. “He has a –”

   He stopped, confused. The room was empty.

   _What the – ?_

   He turned around to look back the way he’d come, wondering if Blue Hair and the girl had slipped back out when he wasn’t looking. _Not unless that kid was the Flash_ , he decided.

   When he looked back –

   It was as if some force field of invisibility or illusion had suddenly failed: there was the girl in her luminescent dress, tossing back her long sweep of hair with a smirk curved over her mouth; and there was Blue Hair, snapping and snarling and _Jesus Christ, those weren’t human teeth!_

   Two more boys were wrestling Blue Hair into submission with what looked like disgusting ease; the smaller blond one wrapped freaking _piano wire_ around Blue Hair’s wrists while the darker-haired boy held him still, and Simon might have protested if Blue Hair wasn’t snapping teeth that belonged in a shark’s mouth, not a boy’s.

   _Holy smokes, Batman!_

   Simon made an elective decision and ducked behind one of the room’s concrete pillars. His heart was pounding, and he felt locked in place, as if all his muscles had abruptly seized. _You’re seeing things,_ he told himself as his hands started to shake a little. _You’re dehydrated and hallucinating. Or it was a trick of the light._ Hadn’t he read somewhere that the brain only registered a set amount of what you saw, and filled in the rest as it pleased? Simon’s brain was hyped up on comic books and anime; maybe today it had decided to spice up what it was seeing.

   So why didn’t he believe that?

   “Are there any of your kind with you?” one of the boys said.

   _‘Your kind’? Oh God, I’ve gotten mixed up in a gang war._ Simon nearly face-palmed himself before realising that They might hear.

   “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” He guessed that was Blue Hair, but it was strange; the voice was kind of whiny and annoyed, where Simon would have just been scared if some punks had tied _him_ up with piano wire.

   _But Blue Hair did have a knife,_ Simon reminded himself.

   “Really?”

   It was the same voice as before – one of the boys in black – but this time it made something in Simon shiver strangely. Just one word, but it was the way he said it; a long, slow drawl, almost a purr. It slid down Simon’s spine like warm honey, like the caress of a nail.

   _This is so not the time!_ Simon yelled at his dick.

   “How about I clear things up for you?” the same boy asked, and Simon heard a rustle of fabric, like sleeves being pushed up. “How about these? Do you know what these are?”

   Blue Hair hissed and spat. _“Shadowhunter_.”

   Simon heard the smile as the boy said “Exactly. Well done. Now,” and Simon knew that sound from a hundred animes, a thousand video games; the sound of a blade coming free of its sheath, “How about we try this again?”

   “Stop kidding around, Jace,” another male voice said – the other boy, Simon assumed. “He’s not going to tell us anything.”

   “No!” Blue Hair protested. “I – I can give you information! I know where Valentine is!”

   “Seriously?” Jace scoffed. “By the Angel, every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too: he’s in Hell. And _you can join him there_ – ”

   Simon didn’t even think about it; he stepped out from behind the pillar before he realised he’d meant to. “Stop it!”

   Jace whirled, so surprised that the knife in his hand flew from his grip to clatter against the floor. It shone in the dim neon light, and Simon’s eyes caught on it against his will: it looked as though it belonged in a video game, all long slender crystal with red jewels dotting the grip. When he glanced back up, all four of them – Jace, the other boy, the girl in the white dress, and Blue Hair – were all staring at him like they’d never seen a human before.

   _Not a good thought_ , Simon thought nervously. It was too obvious that there was something really, _really_ weird going on here.

   “What’s this?” The other boy – not Jace – demanded, glancing at Jace and the girl as if they might be responsible for Simon’s appearance.

   “A boy,” Jace said, regaining his composure. “Come on now, Alec, you’ve seen boys before.”

   The girl laughed, a clear, rich sound. “He’s got you there,” she grinned at Alec.

   Alec glared. “A _mundie_ boy,” he said through gritted teeth. “Who can _see us_.”

   “Of course I can see you – I’m short-sighted, not _blind_ , at least not when I’m wearing my glasses,” Simon said-slash-babbled – and then the word ‘mundie’ caught up with him. “Hang on, what did you just call me?”

   Jace made a dismissive gesture, and for the first time Simon noticed the elaborate, swirling tattoos sheathing both his arms. “Go away, mundie boy.”

   Simon blinked. “What? No!”

   Jace cocked his head. “Why not?”

   Simon gaped at him. “Why n – because – because you’ll kill him,” he pointed at Blue Hair “if I do!”

   “Yes,” Jace said patiently, as if explaining something blatantly obvious to someone very slow. “But there’s no need to worry,” he added brightly, ducking down to snatch up his fairytale knife. “That’s not a human, little boy. It may look like a human and talk like a human and maybe even bleed like a human. But it’s a monster.”

   Simon bristled at the _little boy_ , but the girl spoke before he could. “That’s enough, Jace.”

   “My friend is bringing the security personnel,” Simon said quickly before Jace could do more than twirl his blade between his fingers. It spun like a glittering Catherine wheel. “They’ll be here any minute.”

   “He’s lying,” Alec said, but he looked doubtful suddenly. “Jace, will you – ”

   There was no telling what he would have said (although Simon had his suspicions): with a screech of rage and probably pain Blue Hair ripped through the wire around his hands and lunged for Jace with nails that glittered like metal.

   What happened next – what happened next happened too quickly for Simon to really see; it only processed later. The girl’s arm snapped, something gold and shining flashed from her hand and struck like a serpent, wrapped around Blue Hair’s throat; and Jace, in the same moment, as the boy with shark’s teeth screeched like a harpy, whipped his hand forward and –

   Plunged his crystal knife deep into Blue Hair’s chest.

   Black gunk _exploded_ from the wound. Simon’s arms flew up to protect his face with a little moue of disgust, because _ick_ , there was no way that stuff was hygienic, he was going to need all kinds of anti-bacterial wipes. And, yep, when he lowered his arms his sleeves were covered in it.

   “That,” he said deliberately, “Is disgusting.”

   No one was listening to him. Heck, Simon wasn’t listening to _himself_. He wondered, a little too calmly, if he was going into shock, and if shock caused hallucinations, because Blue Hair was writhing on Jace’s knife (wow, that sounded bad) and –

   Simon blinked, removed his glasses, rubbed at them with a bit of clean shirt, and replaced them.

   No, Blue Hair was still – folding up, smaller and smaller, a bizarre kind of melting-dissolving thing. Simon stared, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, until Blue Hair just – disappeared. Completely. _Gone_.

   “Did someone drug me?” Simon wondered aloud. As all eyes turned to him, he corrected himself, “No, you can’t have, I haven’t had anything to drink yet.”

   “What’s he babbling about?” Alec snapped.

   Jace shrugged, and raised a gold eyebrow at Simon. “What are you babbling about, mundie boy?”

   Simon screwed his eyes shut, but when he counted to ten, they were all three still there, and his sleeves were still covered in black – blood.

   The body – Blue Hair – was still gone, with only a splatter of ichor to show it had ever been there.

   “They return to their home dimensions when they die,” said Jace, seeing him look. “In case you were wondering.”

   “Jace!” the girl snapped.

   Jace walked forward, mind-bogglingly nonchalant for a person who had just killed someone. His knife – it didn’t look like a knife, really, more like a slender stake of glass – was smeared with black, and he wiped it off on his trousers with an ease – a familiarity that sent chills down Simon’s spine, before looking up and meeting Simon’s gaze. “He can see us, Isabelle,” he said. “He already knows too much.”

   Jesus, _that_ didn’t sound good. Simon wondered if this was where he was supposed to put his hands up and tell them he didn’t want any trouble; that’s how it would go if they were playing to a script. But they weren’t, and Simon – didn’t want to be that pathetic. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared – terrified, more like, he’d never seen anyone die outside of a game console and these three were so creepily _blithe_ about it – but it wasn’t like the ‘no trouble’ line ever _worked_ , anyway.

   He held his breath and waited, praying that Clary would show up sometime in, oh, the next five seconds or so.

   “So what do we do with him?” Isabelle demanded. She cracked her whip, and Simon might have made a joke about dominatrix if he hadn’t seen how the thin cord had burned Blue Hair’s throat.

   _Oh, God, please don’t let me die tonight,_ he pleaded. Not on the very first night of Millennium Lint’s success!

   “Let him go,” Jace said quietly. He was staring at Simon with a strangely intense expression, one that Simon had never seen directed at himself before and had no idea how to interpret. His eyes were a strange colour, Simon noted almost without surprise – it wasn’t as though things could get much stranger. They were almost colourless, or beyond colour; like light.

   “Maybe we should bring him back with us,” Alec suggested thoughtfully. “I bet Hodge would like to talk to him.”

   “No way are we bringing him to the Institute,” Isabelle protested. “He’s a _mundie_.”

   That word again. It pricked at Simon’s brain, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before.

   “Or is he?” Jace asked softly. The velvety murmur was worse than Isabelle’s snapping or Alec’s frustration, and he still hadn’t looked away from Simon. “Have you had dealings with demons, little boy? Walked with warlocks, talked with the Night Children? Have you – ”

   “Did you run out of alliteration?” Simon interrupted. “ ‘Night Children’ – what is that, vampires, probably, could you not think of any verbs beginning with v? Verbalize, vent, venerate, vacuum – that’s a good one, _have you_ _vacuumed with vampires_ – ”

   “Simon?” It was Clary’s voice. He whirled around. Clary was standing by the storage room door, beside a large man Simon assumed was one of the bouncers. “Are you okay? What happened to the guy you saw?”

   Simon stared at her. Then he looked back – at Jace, Isabelle, and Alec, none of whom looked surprised by Clary’s apparent blindness. Jace was holding his knife in full view, and both he and Simon were splashed with ichor.

   Jace grinned and swept a mocking bow.

   Slowly Simon turned back to Clary, feeling his heart sink as he realised what he must look like, standing alone in a random storage room. “I think I got confused,” he said quietly, hating his face for turning red. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Clary, whose concerned expression was quickly becoming embarrassed, or the bouncer, who just looked annoyed. “It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

   Behind him, Alec laughed.

*

   Simon returned to the stage after fending off Clary’s questions and finally getting that drink, but the magic was gone. He played well, sang well, the crowd still seemed happy, but he was in safe mode. All his higher functions were disabled or otherwise occupied. The words, the chords – they came automatically, but his mind was miles away, swooping and swerving like a bird.

   What the hell had he seen?

   “Are you really all right?” Clary asked doubtfully when they left the club. Simon was driving the van home; tomorrow he would have to make the rounds, dropping off everyone’s instruments, but for tonight it was easier to just load them all in the van. “You seem kind of...I don’t know, off.”

   He made himself smile at her. “I’m fine.”

   She frowned at him, but didn’t push. They discussed how the performance had gone, how the crazy rumours about Pandemonium were absolutely true, and joked about someday hearing Millennium Lint on the radio – everything, in short, except Simon’s apparent mental breakdown.

   He still hadn’t made sense of it by the time he pulled in outside his apartment building.

   “Simon! How did it go?” His mom, Jocelyn Fray, put down her paintbrush as he walked in and raised her eyebrows at whatever his face was doing. “Uh oh. That bad?”

   He shook his head. “No, it – it was great.” But his enthusiasm – so potent just an hour or so ago – had dwindled almost to nothing. “Mom, is there any history of mental illness in our family?”

   She laughed, but it sounded a little strained. “Why on earth do you ask?”

   “I saw some guys that no one else could see,” he answered absently, without even thinking about it. He fully expected her to laugh it off, but – “Mom? Are you okay?”

   Jocelyn had gone pale, as washed out as her white paint. After a beat she ducked her head and her gaze returned to her painting, but he could tell that she wasn’t seeing her canvas. “I’m fine, sweetheart. I’m glad it went well, but it’s late. I’m going to crash, okay?” She gathered up her things while he stared at her, bewildered by her strange reaction. “Remember to turn off the lights.”

   “Of course,” he answered automatically.

   It wasn’t until she was gone that he realised she had never answered his question.

 

* * *

This chapter's songs are

_Make a Move_ \- Icon for Hire (You can download a male-pitched version of this song, and pretend Simon is singing it, at https://www.box.com/s/nvxag3vizh2app8l6mi4)

_This Is Gonna Hurt_ \- Sixx A.M.

_Don't Dance_ \- Simon Curtis


	2. Chapter 2

_A little danger's never stopped me before...  
Seduced by hypnotic eyes, and, a kiss to die for..._

   “And lo, they died one and all, for the urge to gag was too strong and they could not breathe,” Simon muttered. He ripped out the sheet of notepaper and chucked it to the floor, where it joined half a dozen other paper snowballs; proof that his brain was not up for song writing today.

   He sighed. He’d woken at an hour even Neil Cuddahy would have deemed too early, and since then he hadn’t managed to settle. Even good old WoW had left him feeling restless, as if his skin had grown too tight, or had been filled with crumbs when he wasn’t looking, like the rhino in that Kipling story.

   His dreams had been surreal, hazy and strange, the events of the night before turned even more impossible by the bubbling cauldron of his subconscious, and the images wouldn’t leave him: the glittering knife, the inhuman razors in Blue Hair’s mouth, the strange intensity in Jace’s face. It was enough to make him wish he was a painter – like his mom, like Clary – rather than a singer.

   His phone rang shrilly, startling him out of his reverie; he snatched for it and nearly fell off his bed in a graceless flail of tumbling limbs. He managed to right himself, grabbed the phone, and answered it.

   “Clary?”

   “Simon!” His best friend greeted him cheerfully. “How would you like to go to a poetry reading?”

   Simon pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Then put it back. “I’m sorry, you’re going to have to repeat that. I could have sworn you invited me to a poetry reading, but that is clearly impossible.”

   He could hear – feel – Clary’s grin. “I know, I know, but I’m going mad in here! I want to go out, but you know my mom doesn’t like me going out alone. I have to go with you~.”

   Clary’s mother was a quiet, timid woman with an unexpected stubborn streak. Raised on her grandmother’s stories of the Holocaust, she was a touch overprotective at times. Especially with Clary, who had a habit of not thinking twice where her own safety was concerned. “So you want to go to a _poetry reading?_ ”

   “Well, no,” she admitted. “Not if you have a better idea. It’s just, Eric mentioned it last night, so it was the first idea I had...”

   That sounded...plausible, but also appalling. All of Millennium Lint was grateful that Eric had no pretensions to song writing, but he did insist on attempting to massacre every poetic form he came across. “What about a simple coffee instead?” Simon counter-offered, somewhat desperately.

   “Done,” Clary laughed. “You’re buying.”

   Simon sighed dramatically. “I don’t know why my mom likes you so much,” he muttered, hiding a grin even with no one there to see it. “She clearly doesn’t realise how much of a menace you are.”

   “And she never will,” Clary said promptly. “Starbucks at two?”

   “If I’m buying, it’s Java Jones at half one,” Simon parried, searching for his socks.

   “No one likes a thrifty rockstar, Simon,” Clary told him, but she sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “I’ll see you there.”

   “See you,” he mumbled. Something that had been slowly bubbling at the back of his mind had just clicked.

   Abandoning _the Quest for the Missing Socks_ , Simon left his bedroom and padded into the sitting room. There was a note waiting on the table – his mom, telling him she was out with Luke – but after a quick glance he made a beeline for the bookshelf. Evidence of his mother’s artistic temperament were everywhere – the paintings on the walls being the most obvious, but there were also the lovingly handmade throw pillows of wine-red velvet, and even a few pieces of glazed pottery on neat little pedestals in the corners of the room – but Simon ignored all of these. He ran his finger over the spines of the books on his mother’s shelf.

   _The Necessary Beggar...John Saturnall’s Feast...Some Kind of Fairytale...Elfland...Not In Kansas Anymore._

   Simon pulled the slender book from its place and turned to the index, scanning the neatly arranged entries. The book itself had been a gag gift to his mother from one of her artist friends a few years ago, and Simon had read it, just as he read everything in the house. And he had a niggling feeling of something half-remembered...

   His finger paused as it trailed down the page. _Mundies._

   He _knew_ he’d heard that word somewhere before!

   Eagerly he flipped to the appropriate page and scanned it, hoping for some kind of explanation (although he didn’t remember anything about tattooed, black-clad monster hunters from his first read through). What he got was nothing like what he’d hoped for.

_‘...used by the magical community to refer to non-magicals...’_

   He snapped the book shut, annoyed. He knew ‘magicals’ in this context referred to people like Wiccans and otherkin – people who believed their souls were non-human in some way – but he also knew that Wiccans and otherkin didn’t go around killing people with crystal knives. Jace didn’t seem like the kind of person who followed the Wiccan rede: ‘an it harm none, do what you will’.

   He put the book back and frowned at it, and then at the photo over the mantelpiece. A thoughtful-looking blond man looked back at him, pristine in his military uniform: his father. Simon had always liked the picture, appreciating the tiny details that hinted at a wider story, like the laugh lines around the man’s mouth and eyes, but sometimes, like now, he wished he had more than a few medals in a box of the man who’d fathered him. It would have been nice to have an adult to turn to with questions his mother wouldn’t – or couldn’t, he allowed – answer.

   A box carved with the initials J.C., and inside, a lock of hair and some medals. Not much to go on, when Jocelyn refused to talk about the man. But he must have been something special. He’d died just before Simon was born, but his mother still cried over the box once a year, when she thought Simon was asleep.

   Not that thinking of the might-have-beens would help in any way with solving the mystery of the – what had Blue Hair called them? _Shadowhunters_ ; that was it.

   With a name like that, maybe they’re just a live-action roleplaying group, his brain suggested helpfully.

   Except that roleplaying didn’t make people disappear. With a sigh, Simon was headed for his room to get dressed for Java Jones when the sound of the key in the lock made him pause.

   The door opened heavily, revealing Luke as the bearer of a great many flattened cardboard boxes.

   “Need some help?” Simon asked, moving forward automatically.

   Luke lowered them with a thump. “No, thanks, Simon.” He straightened. “Whew, they were heavier than I thought they’d be.”

   “Aren’t they always?” Simon craned to look around Luke. “Where’s mom?”

   “Parking the truck,” Luke answered, pressing his hands to his lower spine with a groan. He was dressed in his signature outfit: jeans worn soft with age, a flannel shirt, and a slightly crooked pair of gold-rimmed glasses. “Remind me again why this building has no service elevator?”

   Simon just grinned at him. “What are the boxes for?”

   Luke’s joking expression faded. “Your mother wanted to pack up some things,” he said, avoiding Simon’s gaze.

   Simon felt the same plummeting sensation he had when Jace had said _he knows too much_. “What things?”

   Luke made a dismissive gesture. “Extra stuff lying around. Getting in the way. You know she never throws anything out. So, what are you up to? Studying?”

   Simon shook his head. “Going out to meet Clary. I was just going to get dressed...”

   Luke nodded. “Go ahead. Never let it be said I get in the way of teen romance.” He grinned as Simon rolled his eyes, and went to rummage in the toolkit by the hearth.

   The movement brought Luke close to the photograph above the mantle, and Simon paused in the doorway, struck by a thought. He didn’t have a father around, but here was a grown man, delivered up as if in answer to his idle prayer... “Luke?”

   “Mmhm? Ah, here we go.” Luke pulled out an orange plastic tape gun with an expression of deep satisfaction.

   Simon licked his lips. “Um, what would you do, if you saw something nobody else could see?”

   The tape gun fell from Luke’s hand with a clatter: Simon jumped. Luke knelt down to pick it up without looking Simon’s way. “If I were the only witness to a crime, that sort of thing?” he asked carefully.

   “No – well, not exactly,” Simon amended, thinking of the knife, and the blood. The black ichor that still stained his shirt sleeves, now buried at the bottom of his laundry basket. “I mean – if you saw something, and it was invisible to everyone except you.” He glanced back at _Not In Kansas_ and thought of magicals. “Like second sight,” he added helpfully.

   Luke spun around as if Simon had punched him. “Like _what?_ ”

   Simon flinched back. “Like – second sight? It’s this thing – ”

   “I know what it is,” Luke said harshly. His eyes suddenly seemed very blue behind his glasses. The colour vanished as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. When he looked at Simon again, he seemed calmer, but Simon still felt shaken. “Played any good fantasy games lately?” he asked, too casually. Too – _pointedly_.

   Before Simon could answer, the door opened and his mother strode into the room, a few strands of her long red hair escaping its knot as she handed Luke a set of keys. With a questioning eyebrow, she turned to look at Simon.

   When Simon was six years old, his teacher had asked the class who their idols were. After having the word explained to them, most of the children had named superheroes or cartoon characters. Simon proudly declared that his mother was his, and eleven years later that was still true. Jocelyn Fray was built like a real superheroine – not blonde and busty but compact and solid, with a cool composure that said she could handle whatever the world threw at her.

   Simon didn’t have that composure – or his mother’s red hair, or her bone structure; in fact, he didn’t look like her at all, _or_ like his father’s photograph. Jocelyn claimed that Simon took after his grandfather, but since the man had apparently died before Simon was born – leaving behind a complete absence of photographs – Simon had no way to verify that. But he had Jocelyn’s willowy height, and he was grateful for that much.

   “Thanks for bringing the boxes up,” his mother said to Luke. She smiled, but Luke didn’t return it. Simon’s uneasiness increased. “Sorry it took me so long to find a space. There must be a million people in the park today – ”

   “Mom?” Simon interrupted. He shoved his hands in his pockets to hide the sweating of his palms. “Why do you have all these boxes?”

   Jocelyn bit her lip. Luke flicked his eyes towards Simon, silently pushing Jocelyn forward. With a nervous smile, Jocelyn pushed a dangling lock of hair behind her ear, and took a seat on the couch. “We’re going on vacation.”

   All expression vanished from Luke’s face, like a blackboard wiped clean.

   Simon frowned. He looked from Luke’s mask to Jocelyn, and felt the pieces slide into place. “You mean me, too,” he realised.

   “Yes.” Jocelyn watched him closely. “We’re going to the farmhouse – you, me, and Luke.”

   “Okay...” Simon glanced back at Luke, but Luke’s jaw had gone tight and he was glaring out the window, as if the pigeons had personally offended him. Simon felt his heart sink. “For how long?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

   “For the rest of the summer,” his mother answered. “I brought the boxes in case you want to pack up any books, DVDs, your laptop – ”

   “The _rest of the summer?_ ”Simon interrupted, trying not to gape. “But – but why?” This wasn’t like Jocelyn, to spring something like this on him, without any debate or discussion. “I have plans – I have band practise! We did so well last night, mom, you have no idea, I can’t duck out on the guys now!”

   “They’ll understand,” Jocelyn said implacably.

   Simon ran his hand through his hair. “Mom, it doesn’t work like that – Millennium Lint made a splash last night, but we have to keep up with it – if we vanish from the scene now, all our work will be for nothing. We’ll have to start from scratch.” He swallowed past the angry hurt in his throat. “That’s not fair.”

   Jocelyn sucked in a breath. “I have to get away, Simon,” she said after a pause. The corners of her mouth trembled a little, and suddenly Simon saw the dark circles under her eyes, realised that she looked paler than usual. “I need the peace, the quiet, to paint. And money is tight right now – ”

   Simon bit down on the angry words burning his tongue. He so desperately wanted to rail and shout, but that wouldn’t do any good, and it wasn’t fair on his mom when she clearly wasn’t feeling well. “Can’t you sell some of dad’s stocks?” he asked, carefully keeping his voice calm and reasonable. That was what she usually did when they needed money. “Or – you know, I’m seventeen now. I’m old enough to take care of myself.” He watched her carefully for her reaction. “I could get a job at Java Jones or something – ”

   “ _No!”_

   Simon flinched back from the sharpness in Jocelyn’s voice, shocked. “But – ”

   “Simon, I know you are wonderfully responsible and mature for your age, but you are absolutely not living on your own for the rest of the summer! Anything could happen!” Jocelyn shook her head fiercely. “I’m sorry about the band. But you are coming with us; it isn’t optional.”

   Luke knocked over one of the framed pictures with a crash, and Simon and his mom both jumped. Looking embarrassed and upset, Luke knelt to straighten it back against the wall. When he stood up, his face was set and hard. “I’m leaving.”

   Jocelyn rose from the sofa. “Wait.” She hurried after him into the entryway, catching up just as he seized the doorknob. Clenching his hands into fists in the sitting room, Simon could just hear his mother’s urgent whisper. “...Bane,” Jocelyn was saying. “I’ve been calling him and calling him for the past three weeks. His voice mail says he’s in Tanzania. What am I supposed to do?”

   Bane? Who was Bane? Simon had never heard her mention any friend with that name, or friends who took exotic trips – friends who had the _money_ for exotic trips. Most of Jocelyn’s circle were artists, and nearly always strapped for cash.

   “Jocelyn.” Luke’s voice. “You can’t keep going to him forever.”

   “But Simon –”

   “Isn’t Jonathan,” Luke hissed. “You’ve never been the same since it happened, but Simon _isn’t Jonathan_.”

   What did Simon’s father have to do with anything?

   “I can’t keep him at home, not let him go out. He’s seventeen, he won’t put up with it.”

   “Of course he won’t!” Luke sounded half a breath away from furious. “He’s not a pet, he’s a teenager! Almost an adult!”

   “If we were out of the city...”

   “Talk to him, Jocelyn.” Luke’s voice was steely. “I mean it.”

   Simon heard the door open, and then his mother screamed.

   He ran into the hallway, but it was just Clary, standing shocked and pale in the doorway.

   “Is everything okay?” she asked hesitantly, clutching her handbag tightly.

   Simon swallowed. “Yeah, it’s fine,” he said quickly, sparing Jocelyn having to find an explanation. “I thought I was going to meet you at Java?”

   Clary shrugged. She was still frowning at Jocelyn. “I thought I’d walk over. Are you sure nothing’s wrong? We could reschedule...”

   “No, it’s fine,” Simon repeated. “Just – let me grab my wallet, I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move.” He ran back to his room and snatched up the black leather wallet Luke had given him two birthdays ago, and shoved on his sneakers.

   Jocelyn bit her lip when he returned. “Simon, don’t you think we should talk about this?”

   Just once, Simon would like to feel the release of being a typical teenager – the kind of person who could spit out hateful words like throwing up poison. Instead he swallowed the venom and felt it burn in his gut. “No, it’s okay,” he said calmly, shrugging like it was no big deal. “There’s nothing to talk about, right? I’ll pack when I come home.”

   Jocelyn’s relieved, tired smile made him feel guilty for even thinking about saying something nasty to her. He closed the door behind him quickly, and headed for the stairs so fast Clary had to jog to catch up with him.

   “What the hell was all that about?” she demanded.

   Simon sighed. “I’ll tell you in the van,” he said miserably. “I just want a few minutes not to have to think about it first.”

   Clary gave him a weird look, but for once Simon couldn’t make himself care.

   The brownstone where Simon and his mom lived had once upon a time housed a single ridiculously wealthy family. It was still vaguely recognisable as once having been something grand: the curving staircase, the chipped marble entryway floor, and the single-paned skylight flooding the space with light all contributed to the illusion that Simon was a prince in hiding. But now the house was split into apartments, and as Simon and Clary moved down the stairs he glanced at the door of the downstairs tenant, one MADAME DOROTHEA, SEERESS AND PROPHETESS, as announced by the gold plaque on her door.

   As they reached the foyer the plaque-bearing door swung open, spilling out the thick scent of sweet incense that always made Simon think of pagan temples. A man stepped out amidst the cloud – and Simon blinked behind his glasses, because the guy was _gorgeous_ ; all maple-syrup skin and tangled black hair. He grinned at Simon, gold-green eyes gleaming – a cat’s eyes, bright and slitted.

   Simon felt dizzy, and clutched at the stair rail as he stumbled, wondering if he was about to faint.

   _No_ , he told himself firmly. _I refuse to be the damsel here. Only serious Twihards swoon when a pretty guy smiles at them._

   Clary peered at him. “Are you okay?”

   “What? Yeah, I’m fine.”

   The green-eyed man was gone.

*

   “I just – I can’t believe she’s doing this,” Simon said miserably, shredding his chocolate éclair into little pieces. “Not _now_. Last night was Lint’s first big appearance; people are going to be talking about us. We’re supposed to start performing more, maybe build a website where people can download our songs, make sure people know our name.” He slumped in his chair. “Now we’re going to vanish, and you can’t come back after vanishing. Not when you’re as new as we are.”

   “It’s incredibly unfair,” Clary agreed. “Maybe I should have recorded your performance last night, so she could see. Has she heard you guys play yet?”

   “No. What does that matter?”

   “ _Well_ ,” Clary said patiently, “Maybe if she realised how good you guys are, and how much you care about it, she’d reconsider.”

   Simon ate a piece of éclair, thinking it over. “Maybe,” he said doubtfully. He didn’t see how Jocelyn could have missed how much he cared about Millennium Lint, but it was true his mom had no idea they were more than just your usual (read: terrible) basement band. Maybe if she knew that, she would see they had a real shot at something bigger – but only if Simon could stick around now.

   And he didn’t think Jocelyn would change her mind.

   “Do you want another coffee?” he asked.

   “Sure.” Clary was playing with her phone. “Make it black.”

   The coffee shop was crowded for a Sunday; most of the worn-looking couches and armchairs were taken up by Simon and Clary’s fellow teenagers. The smell of coffee and clove cigarettes – yuck – was overwhelming, and as Simon gave their orders to the barista behind the counter he was reminded of the incense from Madame Dorothea’s.

   _People don’t just disappear,_ he told himself. But neither did it seem likely that he had somehow missed the man walking away – he would have had to walk right past Simon and Clary, there in the foyer. _And those eyes..._

   _Was_ there mental illness in his family history? Was that why Jocelyn was so worried, so intent on whisking Simon away from the city? But that didn’t make sense either; if he was developing some kind of disorder, he should be seeing a doctor for an evaluation, not relaxing in the countryside. And what about Luke’s weird reaction when Simon had tried to tell him about it?

   Someone coughed loudly, too loudly – and too obviously faked – for Simon not to glance towards the sound.

   Sitting on a faded green sofa a few feet away was Jace, and Simon’s heart nearly stopped, because he’d been on the way to convincing himself that the whole of last night was the beginning of a very epic but depressing mental breakdown, and now Jace was sitting here, in Java, because _what is my life?_

   The blond was wearing the same dark clothes he’d been wearing last night, which was skeevy but not as bad as the pale lines of scar tissue winding back and forth across his arms. Simon immediately remembered Emma Barnes, who had been taken out of school last year when someone realised she was cutting herself between classes. But the marks didn’t look like they’d been wrought by razors. His wrists flashed wide metal cuffs that were almost vambraces; the pale hilt of a knife was just visible beneath the left one. And he was looking right at Simon with that same disturbing intensity from the night before.

   “For the record, I am not a Twihard,” Simon said firmly. “Which means I do not classify stalking as flattering behaviour. It’s just creepy.”

   Jace raised a single eyebrow, which was a skill Simon had once spent four months trying to learn and coveted jealously. “Who says I’m stalking you?”

   Simon rolled his eyes. “What am I thinking: of course monster hunters need coffee too.” He looked pointedly around at Jace’s complete lack of food and drink. “What is this about?” It was much easier to be casual here, now, surrounded by the smell of coffee and baked goods, and the sound of easy, sane, _normal_ conversations. Jace didn’t seem so terrifying, here in a coffee shop, instead of in the dark, covered in monster blood.

   Instead of answering, Jace uncoiled from the sofa as gracefully as a cat, and like a cat was just as careless about what that grace made him look like; lean and lithe and dangerous. Simon remembered how Jace had swung his knife into Blue Hair, and how _quickly_ ; he had reacted before Simon had managed to blink.

   Which was why he called himself ten kinds of idiot when he realised he was following Jace outside.

   _This is really, REALLY stupid. Catastrophically stupid. Anakin trusting Palpatine stupid!_

   “I should call the police,” he said aloud, testingly.

   “And tell them what?” Jace asked witheringly. “That invisible people are bothering you? Trust me, little boy, the police aren’t going to arrest someone they can’t see.”

   “My name is _Simon_ ,” Simon snapped. He could feel his cheeks flushing. That ‘little boy’ might have featured in some of his weirder dreams last night. “But seriously; why can’t people see you? Is it a force field or something?”

   Jace’s gold eyes shone with something unreadable. “You don’t know much, do you?” he asked consideringly. “You seem to be a mundane like any other mundane, yet you can see me. It’s a conundrum.”

   “Yeah, about that. You called me _mundie_ last night, and I know what that means.” Simon suppressed the little thrill of smug pleasure he felt as Jace’s eyebrows went up. “It’s what witches sometimes call non-witches. Like muggles, but not because that would be copyright infringement. Maybe.” He wasn’t well-versed in copyright law. “Which makes Shadowhunters...what? Witches?”

   “No,” Jace said.

   Simon frowned and considered. “But you’re human.”

   “Not like you.” There was no defensiveness in his tone; Simon even thought he detected a slight hint of amusement, as if watching Simon guess and deduce was fun for him.

    Arrogant bastard.

   “So human, but with extra. Mutants?”

   Jace shook his head. “Hodge thought you might be dangerous, but if you are, you certainly don’t know it.”

   “I thought we’d established that I don’t know anything?” Then the rest of Jace’s declaration struck him. “ _I’m_ dangerous? Are you kidding? I did okay against Kil'jaeden but I somehow doubt I have the hit points for what you’re talking about.”

   Jace frowned at him. “What’s a Kil'jaeden?”

   Simon made a dismissive gesture. “He’s a demon, it doesn’t matter – ”

   “ _You fought a demon?_ ”

   Simon groaned. “It’s a game, okay, it’s – _not a real demon_ ,” and he told himself it didn’t sting to see the amazed, impressed look fade from Jace’s face. “Let’s examine this rationally, please. You,” he pointed his finger at Jace’s chest, “are some kind of monster hunter, whom no one else can see,” and right there the whole concept of rationality flew out the window, but Simon ignored that part. “How do I know I’m not just hallucinating you? That seems far more likely than the existence of invisible Winchester copycats.”

   “I could hurt you,” Jace suggested. Too quickly for Simon to see how he did it, he had the knife from his bracelet in his hand; not crystalline this time, but a simpler thing of polished steel, with a handle that might have been ivory or bone. “That would prove I’m real.”

   Simon gulped. “Clearly you haven’t seen _The Matrix_ , illusion can absolutely hurt you, can you please put the knife away now? The knife is not making me happy.”

   With a roll of his eyes, Jace jabbed the knife back into its sheath. “If I can’t hurt you, how am I supposed to prove anything?”

   “I’ll just take your word for it,” Simon decided. “If I’m not hallucinating, then you’re probably not deluded, because I saw Blue Hair – ”

   “Blue Hair?” Jace echoed.

   “The – ” _guy, boy, kid_ “creature you killed last night.”

   Jace’s expression brightened. “Ah.”

   “Yes, him. I saw” _his teeth_ “him vanish, which means that _something_ more than normal is going on. Maybe monsters.” Simon chewed his lip, then stopped. That was Jocelyn’s gesture, not his.

   “Give me your right hand,” Jace ordered.

   “What? Why?” Simon resisted the urge to clutch his hand to his chest protectively.

   “Because I’ll reconsider not hurting you if you don’t,” Jace drawled.

   Simon stared at him, and then turned around and stalked back towards the cafe.

   “Where are you going?” Jace demanded.

   “I don’t play with bullies,” Simon tossed over his shoulder, shoving his hands into his pockets so Jace wouldn’t see them shake. He told himself it was anger making them tremble, not fear of what this knife-wielding boy could do to his unprotected back.

   He’d almost reached Java’s door when a hand fell on his shoulder. He froze, but Jace’s voice, when it came, wasn’t angry or threatening.

   “I’m sorry, that was out of line.” From their brief acquaintance, Simon would have said that Jace had never said ‘I’m sorry’ in his life, but the blond sounded genuinely apologetic. “Could you please show me your hand? It would help me work out what you are.”

   Simon turned back around and held his palm out, wordlessly. Jace took it and turned it over, examining Simon’s pale skin, the fine hair on the back of his hand. The touch was startling, not in any romantic sense but because this was a stranger; Simon could count on the fingers of one hand the people he had any kind of regular physical contact with.

   “Nothing,” Jace said, letting Simon’s hand fall. He sounded – disappointed? “You’re not left-handed, are you?”

   Simon shook his head. “Why?”

   “Most Shadowhunter children get Marked on their right hands – or left, if they’re left-handed, like I am – when they’re still young. It’s a permanent rune that lends an extra skill with weapons.” He showed Simon the swirling black eye on the back of his left hand.

   “Like the kanji on Jiraya’s fingers,” Simon murmured, peering at it.

   “What?”

   “It’s a scene in _Naruto_ ,” Simon explained absently. “But the symbols there are more like a signal that magic is being done. You’re saying your runes _are_ magical?”

   “Marks,” Jace corrected. “Different Marks do different things. Some are permanent, but the majority vanish when they’ve been used.”

   “These ones,” Simon gestured to the symbols on Jace’s arms, “are permanent? What do they all do?”

   But Jace shook his head. “They’re temporary. I carved them in this morning.”

   Simon blinked. “Why?”

   Jace shrugged. “In case you were dangerous,” he said blithely. “You have the Sight, clearly.” He seemed pleased about that. “I wasn’t sure what you were. Are.”

   And they were back to that.

   Jace looked up at the sky before Simon could think up any more questions. “Time to go,” he announced cheerfully.

   Simon felt a flash of déjà vu; it was like Jocelyn’s announcement all over again. “We have not yet established that I am going anywhere with you,” he said firmly.

   “ _You_ haven’t,” Jace corrected him. “ _I_ have orders. Hodge said I have to bring you to the Institute with me. He wants to talk to you.”

   Simon glared. “Allow me to rephrase that: I have no intention of going anywhere with you.”

   Jace raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly around the alley, as if to say _you already did_.

   Simon rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. “Why would I go anywhere with you?”

   “Because you know the truth now,” Jace said promptly. “There hasn’t been a mundane who knew about us for at least a hundred years.”

   Simon quietly registered that _us_ , but didn’t feel up to knowing just how many Shadowhunters there were yet. Partly because his mind derailed a little bit at the way Jace said _mundane_. It sounded much better than _mundie_.

   “You can come willingly or unwillingly,” Jace added.

   “I will scream like a little girl if you try and kidnap me anywhere,” Simon warned. “High and hysterical. Everyone will come running.”

   Jace snorted. It was an endearing sound, so that Simon had to suppress a grin, despite the seriousness of being threatened with kidnapping.

   “I want to go home first,” Simon said slowly, thinking it through. “I left my phone there, and I want it if I’m going anywhere with you.”

   “That’s fair,” Jace allowed. He even looked approving. Simon supposed that monster hunters _would_ approve of safety measures of all kinds. “How far away is home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song lyrics at the beginning are from I'm in Love (With a Killer) - Jeffree Star.
> 
> Neil Cuddahy is a character from the Mutant X comics who can go without sleep.
> 
> Jocelyn's books are all concerned with the theme of being a magical outcast among 'mundanes'.
> 
> The word 'mundie' is used in Christine Wicker's book Not In Kansas Anymore, which was published in 2005, two years before City of Bones was published in 2007. The quote, though, is not a direct quote, because I don't have access to my copy of the book just now. But it means that 'mundie' was around before and outside of Cassandra Clare.
> 
> Lastly, Simon has just turned 17 in this fic, whereas Jace is nearly 18. Clary and Isabelle are squarely 17, and Alec is 18. Since there will eventually be sex in this story I messed with everyone's ages.


	3. Chapter 3

   Later, Simon did not remember what he told Clary to make up for abandoning her at Java. It was unlike him, that; usually he cherished every minute he got to spend in her company, silently wishing he had the balls to be honest about his feelings. But now, with Jace hovering invisibly just a few feet away while he babbled something about the trip to the farmhouse and having to pack, Simon was too – too _excited_ to feel bad about the missed opportunity. The heart-stopping terror of the night before was fading, dissolving into interest, into thrilling newness, like unlocking the fourth tier level in Diablo 3.

   Only better, because this was real.

   (Also scarier, because this was _real_ ).

  Jace said nothing about the van as he climbed into it, but his eyebrows spoke volumes. Simon ignored the encyclopaedias encoded there in favour of asking another question. “So what else is there, aside from Shadowhunters?” He manfully kept a straight face as he added “You mentioned something about vampires, last night.”

   Jace shot him a look, and Simon carefully didn’t grin. “Downworlders and demons,” Jace said finally.

   “They’re not the same? Because ‘Downworlder’ sounds like something from Hell.” Simon glanced at Jace’s frown. “You know – down world? That sounds like either a realm under the earth – Hell – or Australia.”

   Jace rolled his eyes. “Downworlders are not demons. They’re the magical folk of this dimension – the fey, warlocks, werewolves.” He gave Simon another look. “ _Night Children._ ”

   “ _Vampires_ ,” Simon parried cheerfully. “ ‘Night Children’ is so pretentious, don’t you think?”

   To his surprise, Jace nodded, allowing the point. “Demons are malevolent spirits whose origin is outside our own home dimension.”

   “Other _dimensions?_ Those _exist_?!”

   “Of course they do.” The _duh_ was so heavily implied Jace might as well have said it, but Simon barely noticed. Other _dimensions_. This was much, much bigger than discovering that Earth had all kinds of hidden creepy crawlies; that was a shock, but not a complete stretch. Most people acknowledged that humanity didn’t know everything about their world yet.

   But other dimensions? Other _worlds?_ That was _huge_ ; that had so many implications and ramifications that Simon’s head felt like a hive of pissed off bees, buzzing so loudly he couldn’t hear himself think.

   “Can we go there?” he asked quickly. “Is it possible to visit?”

   “Why would you want to?” Jace sounded honestly baffled. Simon resisted the urge to flail, because he was driving and flailing was not an appropriate driving technique.

   “Why would you – because! Other species! Thinking, talking species! It’s like aliens, who doesn’t love aliens? And, and other worlds! Do they have culture? Civilisation? Oh my God, are there alien civilisations?”

   Jace’s eyebrows were very clearly saying _what is wrong with you and is it contagious?_ “I wouldn’t know,” he said slowly. “The only _demons_ ,” he stressed the word, “I’ve ever met are ones that try to kill me.”

   Simon made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “You have a very caustic personality, clearly you rub the aliens the wrong way.”

   Jace raised his eyebrows _yet again_ , and Simon realised what he’d just said. His cheeks warmed, and he wished, intensely, that it was possible to kick yourself while driving.

   “They are not aliens,” Jace said after a few minutes of horribly awkward silence. “They’re _demons_. Not friendly green Martians. Don’t idealise them.” He folded his arms and stared out the window. “Anyway, Hodge will explain all this to you at the Institute.”

   “Who’s Hodge?” Simon asked half-heartedly.

   “My tutor.”

   The rest of the drive was silent, until Simon pulled in by the house. “I’ll just run up and grab my phone – do you want to come in?” Simon asked, realising that it was a bit rude to just leave Jace in the car. Especially when it was so hot: the van didn’t have great air conditioning, and without the engine running he wouldn’t have left a dog in there. Not that Jace was a dog, but...

   Jace looked like he was going to refuse, so it surprised Simon when he shrugged and acquiesced.

   Inside, the foyer was cool and quiet. “It’s, um, I’m upstairs,” Simon said, suddenly unaccountably nervous to have Jace see where he lived. What were Shadowhunter homes like? Probably not tiny run-down apartments. And now that he thought about it, his room wasn’t too tidy either.

   “And just where do you think you’re going?”

   Jace’s knife was in his hand by the time Simon spun around. Madame Dorothea was sitting in an armchair she – or someone, because she didn’t look as though she could have carried it there – had moved in front of her door. The older woman was wedged into it tightly, fanning herself with a white lace fan. As always, she was wearing a turban: today it was a dark emerald green. “Your mother,” Dorothea said, “has been making a god-awful racket up there. What’s she doing? Moving furniture?” She peered at Jace. “Greetings, Shadowhunter.”

   Simon gaped at her. “You can see him?”

   Dorothea frowned. “Of course I can see him, you nitwit.”

   “But you’re a _mundane_ ,” Jace protested.

   “Really?” Simon asked. “Aren’t you getting a little tired of saying that?”

   Jace glared at him.

   Dorothea waved her hand. “Run along now,” she ordered. “And you,” she pointed her fan at Simon, “You tell that mother of yours to get her boyfriend to change that stairwell light.”

   For the first time, Simon realised that the light had burned out. “Okay, Miss Dorothea.” He had long since given up explaining that Luke was not his mother’s boyfriend, and had no responsibility to grout Dorothea’s shower or pick up her groceries.

   Jace was still frowning at the seeress when Simon gestured him up the stairs. “Who is she?” he demanded.

   Simon shrugged, fumbling with his keys. “She does tarot readings, that’s all I know. She’s a friend of my mom’s.” He pushed his key into the door, but it swung open before he could turn it.

   The door was unlocked.

   “Something wrong?” Jace asked.

   “I don’t know,” Simon said slowly.

   Jocelyn’s keys and pink handbag were on the small wrought-iron shelf by the door, where she always left them. “Mom?” Simon called. “Why’d you leave the door unlocked?”

   There was no answer, and a strange nervousness began to curl down Simon’s spine. “Mom? I’m home.”

   Instead of going straight to his bedroom he went into the living room, looking for Jocelyn. The windows were open, which would have meant his mother was painting, but Jocelyn had never thrown the sofa cushions all over the room, or torn them open. She had never tipped over the bookcase, never knocked the piano stool onto its side. She would _never_ have ripped up her books of sheet music, lying in shreds near the gaping-open stool. Jocelyn _loved_ those books.

   Simon stood frozen in the doorway, unable to take it all in. When he saw that his mother’s paintings had been slashed from their frames and torn into strips, he actually cried out, unable to stifle the shock and pain of seeing the beautiful pictures destroyed.

   Abruptly Jace was beside him. He still had his knife in hand. “What happened here?”

   “I don’t – I don’t know – ” Simon clenched his hands in his hair. “Oh God, my mom!” He spun around and ran from room to room, ignoring Jace’s warning. “Mom! _Mom!_ ”

   His room was untouched. So was Jocelyn’s – the handmade quilt was still folded carefully on the duvet; a younger Simon smiled back at him from the bedside table. But the kitchen was a mess, bottles and cartons broken all over the floor, the cabinet doors left open or torn off, and none of it made any _sense_. Simon stood in the doorway and just stared at it, feeling the world spin off its axis, feeling fire and bile and pain clog his throat, blur his vision. _Where’s my mom?_

   Something heavy hit the floor with a dull thud. Simon assumed it was Jace and barely registered it – although that made no sense, Jace was too obviously graceful to knock things over – but his ears caught the dragging, slithering noise that followed and drew a question mark on the inside of his brain.

   More confused than afraid, he turned around.

   It was crouched against the floor, a long, scaled creature with a cluster of flat black eyes set dead centre in the front of its domed skull. Something like the illegitimate child of an alligator and a centipede. It had too many legs and a horrible thick, flat snout, and Simon froze, too stunned to scream as it readied itself to spring.

   He _did_ scream as something crashed into him, but it was Jace, not the – not the _thing_ , which leapt into the space Simon had occupied a half second previously.

   “ _What is that thing?!_ ” Simon shouted. Jace, sensibly, ignored him and rolled to his feet, snarling “Sanvi!” The slender tube that had appeared in his hand suddenly snapped itself longer, like one of those crazy sword-in-a-walking-stick things, and Jace lunged at the monster with it.

   Simon scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding with terror. Only the most inane of instincts made him pick up Jace’s phone from where he had dropped it, thinking wildly that the Shadowhunter wouldn’t want it crushed underfoot.

   “ _Shadowhunter_ ,” the thing hissed. It was on the line were the kitchen wall met the ceiling, twitching, and just the sight of it made Simon want to be sick. “ _Valentine said nothing of Shadowhunters here – ”_

   “All of you talking about Valentine,” Jace drawled. “You need to get some new material.”

   Simon, pressed into a corner, flinched at the sight of the thing’s black tongue, flickering in and out like a lizard’s. _“Stupid Shadowhunter. Not here for you. Here for boy – ”_ Oh _God_ it was looking at Simon, licking its lips, and he took it back, he did, he was happy when all the adventures were on the Playstation could they just go back to that _please_ –

   “Simon,” Jace said carefully, never taking his eyes from the monster, “You need to leave. Go downstairs, go out to the van and wait for me there – ”

   “ _Noooooooo!_ ” The thing howled. _“Mine! My flesh! My blood to eat, oh, to eat!_ ” It skittered across the ceiling, still saying those horrible things, and God, was this what had happened to his mom, had it – was – had it _killed_ her, was she dead, what if it had _eaten her_ and yes, Simon was crying, it was pathetic and he couldn’t even pretend that they weren’t terror-tears because they were. But lots of them were terror-tears _for his mom_ , for the horrible uncertainty of what had happened to her; and some of them were anger tears, _fury_ tears, because this horrible, disgusting _thing_ might have hurt Jocelyn, and Jace was yelling and running but the monster jumped, this freaky rabbit-like jump, and Simon was so unbelievably scared and so unbelievably _angry_.

   There was something in his hand and he lashed out with it, wanting to hurt this monster thing, wanting to _destroy_ it, but there were tears in his eyes, he couldn’t _see_ and the thing’s mouth was open and Simon’s fist pushed down its throat like hitting a bull’s-eye.

   He screamed again as its drool burned him like acid and his wrist was sliced open by its shark-like teeth, and wrenched his hand back. He kicked at it desperately, knocking it aside a little, clutching his hand to his chest _(it was bleeding it was burning)_ and Jace –

   Jace stabbed his crystal blade through its head just as it started to spasm, as ichor-stained foam poured out of its mouth, and it died.

   Instantly Jace was there, his hands on Simon’s shoulders, “Ssh, ssh, you’re all right, you’re okay,” and Simon was crying, babbling something about his mom, and his hand was on _fire_. His knees gave out, and he slid down the wall; only Jace’s firm grip kept him from tumbling onto the floor. Jace knelt in front of him and gently tugged free Simon’s injured hand, careful to grip it below the burns, below the marks of the thing’s teeth.

   Simon swung at him instinctively with his other hand, but it was so clumsy Jace only tilted his head to avoid it.

   “Simon, I need to see the wounds,” he said, slowly and clearly. “I can heal them a little, enough to get you to the Institute – ”

   He was drawing out a slender little wand as he spoke, but Simon didn’t notice, didn’t _care_. His chest kept heaving, and he couldn’t tell if it was the sobbing or if he was trying to be sick; his mom, God his _mom_ , and his hand, he had to grit his teeth as Jace touched it so he didn’t scream again –

   Coolness flowed into and through his wrist, then, such an intense relief that Simon gasped. He blinked away the tears, trying to see what Jace was doing, but a wave of exhaustion followed the cold and then everything went dark.

*

   “Do you think he’ll ever wake up? It’s been three days already.”

   “You have to give him time. Demon poison is strong stuff, and he’s a mundane. He hasn’t got runes to keep him strong like we do.”

   “Mundies die awfully easily, don’t they?”

   “Isabelle, you know it’s bad luck to talk about death in a sickroom.”

*

   _Three days...?_ Simon thought blearily. _Why have I been sleeping for three days?_

   Then it all came back to him, for a single, screamingly horrible moment, before the dreams swept him under again. Strange dreams, terrible dreams; his mother lying comatose in a hospital bed, bruises under her eyes; Luke standing atop a pile of bones; Clary with crosses burned into her palms. He saw the blue haired demon and the monster from his kitchen.

   He saw Jace with white wings extending from his back; Jace with a swipe of demon blood on his cheek like a curve of calligraphy; Jace, holding Simon’s shoulders, telling him it was going to be okay.

   He saw angels and angels and angels, falling out of the sky.

*

   “I told you it was the same boy.”

   “I know. Skinny thing, isn’t he? Jace said he killed a Ravener.”

   “He doesn’t look like he could take on a Ravener.”

   “Well, nobody looks their best with demon venom in their veins. Is Hodge going to call on the Brothers?”

   “I hope not. They give me the creeps. Anyone who mutilates themselves like that – ”

   “ _We_ mutilate ourselves.”

   “I know that, Alec, but when we do it, it isn’t permanent. And it doesn’t always hurt...”

   “If you’re old enough. Speaking of which, where is Jace? He saved the mundie, didn’t he? I would have thought he’d take some interest in his recovery.”

   “Hodge said Jace hasn’t been to see him since he brought him in. I guess he doesn’t care.”

   “Sometimes I wonder if he – Look! He moved!”

   “I guess he’s alive after all.” A sigh. “I’ll tell Hodge.”

*

   Simon’s eyelids felt as if someone had threaded tiny anchors onto each of his eyelashes; impossibly heavy and unwilling to move. When he did manage to open them, everything was blurry, and he reached instinctively for his glasses.

   That was a mistake. Everything ached, especially his arm, but he had no choice, and felt around clumsily for his glasses. When he found them, everything swung into focus: the linen-sheeted bed, one of several identical beds with metal headboards, and the bizarre ceiling painted with swollen clouds and cherubs trailing golden ribbons.

   _What?_

   There was a white jug, a glass, and his wallet on the table that had borne his glasses; careful of the weakness in his arms, he poured himself a drink. As he swallowed he carefully considered his memories, and guessed that he was at Jace’s mythic Institute. He thought he could hear the faint, ever-present sounds of New York traffic from outside, which relieved him immensely; he’d vaguely wondered if the Institute was going to be in Atlantis or some other improbable location.

   “So, you’re finally awake,” said a dry voice. “Hodge will be pleased. _We_ all thought you’d probably die in your sleep.”

   Simon turned sharply. Isabelle was perched on the next bed, where she certainly had not been a minute ago. Her inky hair had been bound in two thick braids which fell past her waist, and she had exchanged her white dress for jeans and a blue tank top. Simon expected to see tattoos – Marks – but there were none, only the same pale scars that Jace had.

   “Sorry to disappoint.” Simon’s voice was rough, and despite the drink his throat still felt dry.

   Isabelle shrugged. “Hodge said to make sure you drank the potion,” she pointed at the pitcher, “but since you just did, I guess that’s alright. Well done you.”

   Simon blinked and glanced nervously at the jug; he hadn’t even noticed it had been anything but water.

   “You should eat, though,” Isabelle added. “You haven’t eaten anything for three days.”

   “I can tell.” Now that he was awake, he could feel a painful gnawing sensation in his stomach, a clawing hunger more intense than any he’d felt before. _But then, I’ve never fasted for three days_ , he thought reasonably. “You don’t have any horses lying around, do you?”

   She grinned at him. “No. But if you keep drinking that,” she nodded towards the jug, “The hunger will go away.”

   Deciding that being drugged at this point wouldn’t make much difference, Simon did as he was told. This time, he paid attention, and made a pleased sound: it was delicious, rich and satisfying, although he couldn’t name the tastes in it, and despite being water-thin it _felt_ as thick as soup. “What is this?”

   “One of Hodge’s tisanes. They always work.” She slid off the bed, landing on the floor with a catlike arch of her back. “I’m Isabelle Lightwood, by the way. I live here.” She saw his confusion. “ _Not_ in the infirmary,” she said with an eye roll. “In the Institute.”

   “Oh.” Simon’s tongue felt thick. “I’m Simon. Fray.”

   “I know. Jace said you killed that Ravener demon all by yourself. He won’t stop talking about it,” she added.

   He blinked. “Um, no. That’s not what happened at all – it would have killed me if Jace hadn’t – ” He only noticed his hands were shaking when the tisane in the cup started trembling. He put it down carefully. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said quietly.

   Isabelle shrugged. “Either way, Hodge wants to talk to you.” She pointed. “The bathroom’s through there. Jace stole some of Alec’s clothes for you; they’re in there waiting for you.”

   “What happened to _my_ clothes?” Simon tentatively swung his legs onto the floor, tensed for dizziness. But it didn’t come; he no longer felt hungry or light-headed at all. He looked down at the plain, hospital-like pyjamas and felt horribly embarrassed at the thought of something changing him into them.

   “They were covered in blood and ichor and Ravener venom. Jace burned them.”

   “What? That was my favourite shirt!”

   Isabelle raised one eyebrow. Could all Shadowhunters do that? “ ‘You probably don’t recognise me without my cloak’?”

   Simon crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “I liked it,” he muttered rebelliously.

   “Well, tough. Go get changed,” Isabelle ordered imperiously, and Simon found himself walking – carefully – before he’d decided he would. “And clean up a little. You smell.”

   She really would make a good dominatrix, he decided.

*

   Alec’s clothes did not, sadly, include any t-shirts with humorous slogans on them. In fact, they looked completely ridiculous, and Simon wondered if Jace had deliberately chosen them to make Simon look stupid. The sleeves of the blue t-shirt hung over his wrists, and so dark it made his pale skin look pasty. The cuffs of the slacks had to be rolled up around his ankles, but fit more or less all right. Which was lucky, because Jace had forgotten – as Simon had done on numerous sleepovers when he was younger – to provide socks and underwear.

   Simon stood staring at the clothes after his shower, dripping everywhere, and debating whether to just suck it up or confess to Isabelle that he didn’t have any boxers.

   The thought of her grin made his choice for him, but he wasn’t happy about it. Thank God Jace hadn’t given him jeans; he shuddered to think of the chafing a zipper would have caused.

   He missed his Batman socks fiercely.

   When he was dressed, he sat down on the toilet and tried to think logically – which had not become any easier since the last time he’d tried it.

   _My mom is missing._ I’ve _been missing for three days. Luke, Clary and the guys are all going to be worried about me._ He would have to call them; more, he would have to come up with an explanation. A good one.

   He had no idea what constituted a good explanation for vanishing for three days.

   Isabelle was gone when he eventually left the bathroom. It appeared that Jace had deemed Simon’s sneakers worthy of survival, because they hadn’t been burned: he found them at the foot of his bed, his keys tied helpfully to the laces.

   When he sat down to put them on, he found his phone in the right shoe.

   For a moment, Simon stared at the little device in his hand and fought the urge to start crying. The tiny kindness was overwhelming; after everything, after s _aving Simon’s life_ , Jace had still thought to grab Simon’s phone for him.

   Simon curled his fingers around it, sucked in a breath, and carefully put it in his pocket. He didn’t have an explanation yet. When he did, he would call everyone.

   He left the room in search of Isabelle or the mysterious Hodge.

 


	4. Chapter 4

   The corridor outside the infirmary was as empty as a ghost town, which was exactly what Simon thought of as he wandered through the building helplessly, without seeing anyone. Glass lamps shaped like roses lit the corridors, but they were dusty, and the Victorian-esque wallpaper was faded. The place smelled thickly of dust and candle wax. He wondered if this was what the Beast’s castle smelt like before Belle turned up.

   Suddenly Simon realised he could hear something, and he walked towards the sound eagerly. He passed dozens of closed doors before he recognised the sound as that of a piano, and then he had to stop for a moment as memories of his mother’s playing spiked painfully between his ribs.

   This person wasn’t quite as skilled as Jocelyn, but they came close. Simon didn’t recognise the tune at all, but he was in a building that housed monster killers; at this point, he would have been surprised if he _had_ known the song.

   Turning a corner, Simon came to an open doorway; the first that wasn’t locked tight. He put his hand on the doorframe but didn’t enter what was clearly a music room; a small cluster of instruments occupying the half of the large room that wasn’t filled with chairs for an audience.

   Jace was seated at a grand piano while his quick, slender hands danced over the keys. His grey t-shirt revealed toned arms that were bare of Marks today, and beneath his jeans he was barefoot. He looked as though he’d woken up even later than Simon; his hair was all mussed up, but what looked like bed head on Simon was just ridiculously sexy on Jace, as if some hair stylist had spent hours getting the perfect look for a photo shoot. Watching Jace’s hands moving over the instrument, Simon remembered those fingers holding his shoulders, keeping him from falling apart.

   Simon must have made some kind of noise; Jace stopped playing and peered into the shadows. “Alec? Is that you?”

   Simon’s mouth went dry. “No,” he managed. “It’s Simon.” A little nervously he stepped into the room where Jace could see him.

   Something strange flashed across Jace’s face, there and gone too quickly for Simon to interpret it. He was getting used to that. “Our very own Sleeping Beauty,” Jace said, looking back down at the keys. “Who finally kissed you awake?”

   Simon blinked. There was something strange in Jace’s voice. Jace must have heard it as well because he continued quickly before Simon could reply. “Was there anyone with you?”

   “Isabelle. But she disappeared on me. Probably to get the mysterious Hodge you all keep talking about.” Simon put his hands in his pockets, and closed his fingers around the hard shape of his phone, which reminded him. “Thanks,” he said quietly, awkwardly. “For – you know. Earlier.”

   Jace made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t mention it. It’s what we do.” He slid the gleaming piano lid closed. “Come on, I’ll take you to Hodge.”

*

   Simon had already surmised that that Institute was huge, but he hadn’t realised just _how_ huge until Jace led him deeper into the maze. They passed half-open doors through which Simon glimpsed identical small rooms that reminded him of a hostel – bed, nightstand, open wardrobe – and beneath ceilings held up by pale arches of stone, most of them carved with esoteric figures and symbols. Simon began to feel as if he’d stumbled into an underground drow city.

   “This is more than just a research institute, isn’t it?” Simon said aloud. He spotted his fourteenth angel-and-sword combination in as many steps. “All the bedrooms. Who stays here?”

   “This is the residential wing,” Jace explained. “We’re pledged to offer safety and lodging to any Shadowhunter who requests it. We can house up to two hundred people here.”

   That _we_. “Do you live here like Isabelle?”

   Jace nodded. “And her brother Alec. And Hodge, of course.”

   “Of course,” Simon echoed. “But all of these rooms are empty.”

   Jace shrugged. “People come and go. Nobody stays for long. Usually it’s just us – Alec, Isabelle, Max, their parents. Me and Hodge.”

   “Max?”

   “Isabelle’s younger brother. He’s overseas with their parents.”

   “On vacation?”

   “Not exactly.” Jace paused. “You can think of them as – as foreign diplomats, and of this as an embassy, of sorts. Right now they’re in the Shadowhunter home country, working out some very delicate peace negotiations. They brought Max with them because he’s so young.”

   “Back up a second,” Simon ordered. “Shadowhunter home country? You people have _your own country_?”

   “It’s called Idris.”

   Simon frowned. “I’ve never heard of it,” he declared.

   “You wouldn’t have.” That maddening arrogance was back in Jace’s voice again. “Mundanes don’t know about it. There are wardings – protective spells – ”

   “I know what wards are,” Simon muttered.

   Jace ignored him. “ – up all over the borders. If you tried to cross into Idris, you’d simply find yourself transported instantly from one border to the next. You’d never know what happened.”

   Simon’s head was spinning. “That is the best security system ever,” he breathed. “So – Idris isn’t on any maps, then?”

   “Not mundie ones.” That word again. “For our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France.”

   Simon pondered this. “I want to see your maps,” he decided, because the thought of an invisible country was even cooler than invisible monster hunters. “Have you been there? To Idris, I mean.”

    “I grew up there.”

   Jace’s voice was so neutral Simon knew instantly that he’d stepped on a landmine, and asked no more questions. But Jace kept talking anyway. “Most of us do. There are, of course, Shadowhunters all over the world. We have to be everywhere, because demonic activity is everywhere. But to a Shadowhunter, Idris is always home.”

   “So, kind of like Hogwarts?” Simon guessed. “You’re raised and trained there, and then – no, that’s a really bad comparison, sorry.”

   Jace frowned confusedly at him, then continued as if Simon hadn’t spoken. “We’re sent where we’re needed. And there are a few, like Isabelle and Alec, who grow up away from Idris because that’s where their parents are. With all the resources of the Institute here, with Hodge’s training – ” He broke off. “This is the library.”

   They had stopped in front of an arch-shaped set of wooden doors. A Persian cat – the kind of grey Simon had heard called blue, although he couldn’t imagine why – lay curled in front of them. It raised its head and yowled at them.

   “Hey, Church,” Jace said, stroking the cat’s back with his bare foot. The cat closed its yellow eyes in pleasure.

   Simon frowned as something occurred to him. “Hang on, so Alec, Isabelle and Max are the only Shadowhunters your age that you know? Doesn’t that get lonely?”

   Jace stopped stroking the cat. “I have everything I need.” He pushed the doors open and went inside.

   Simon hesitated a moment before following him in.

   He was glad that he did: the room inside was _beautiful_ , circular like the inside of a tower with a peaked ceiling that stretched far above his head. Shelves so high that ladders were in place to reach them were lined with books, more than Simon had ever seen before – and not ordinary books, either. It was like a wizard’s library, like how he’d imagined the library at Hogwarts: books with locks keeping their covers of leather and velvet tightly closed, books whose covers were set with glittering gemstones, books whose opened pages revealed gold script and rainbow illuminations. And they were clearly loved; despite the need for a good clean in the rest of the building Simon couldn’t spot one speck of dust anywhere on these books, or on the polished wooden floor.

   He looked more closely. There were chips of semiprecious stone and glass set into the floor, in some swirling symbol that Simon guessed was some kind of Mark, but he couldn’t see it properly; it was too large. He would have had to have stood near the ceiling to see the whole of it.

   When he looked up again, he saw a thin, grey-haired man sitting behind a beautiful oaken desk whose surface was held up by carved angels. They didn’t look as though they were happy about their task, but they were incredibly life like.

   The man smiled. “A book lover, I see,” he said. “You didn’t tell me that, Jace.”

   Jace chuckled, and Simon blinked; the Shadowhunter had come up behind him, and was grinning that maddening grin with his hands in his pockets. Simon glared at him.

   “We haven’t done much talking during our short acquaintance,” Jace said. “I’m afraid our reading habits didn’t come up.”

   “Yes they did,” Simon corrected. “I have decided that you clearly don’t read, you don’t get any of my references.” He looked back to the man he assumed was Hodge. “How did you know I love books?”

   “The look on your face when you walked in,” he said. He stood up and walked around from behind the desk. “Somehow I doubted you were that impressed by _me_.” He had a bird on his shoulder, and Simon immediately decided that he liked Hodge; he loved books and he had a pet bird. Clearly a wizard, his brain declared. Hodge was only lacking the beard.

   “This is Hugo,” Hodge said, gently touching the bird on his shoulder. “He is a raven, and as such, he knows many things. I, however, am Hodge Starkweather, a professor of history, and, as such, I do not know nearly enough.”

   Simon _loved_ this guy; he grinned widely. “Simon Fray.”

   “Honoured to make your acquaintance,” Hodge said. “I would be honoured to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with his bare hands.”

   Simon felt his grin fade, and he turned to shoot Jace another glare. Jace looked entirely unfazed. “That’s not what happened,” Simon told Hodge, feeling as though he were disappointing the man. “I’m sorry, but it’s not. Jace killed it with his sword thing.”

   “Actually, you did,” Jace corrected. “He shoved my Sensor down the thing’s throat,” he told Hodge. “The runes must have choked it. It was dying _before_ I managed to get Sanvi through its skull.”

   Simon blinked. _I killed a demon?_ It was sad that yesterday – no, not yesterday, but before all this happened – he would have found that almost unbearably cool. Now he only felt a dull sense of disbelief. It wasn’t cool. Demons weren’t cool. Demons had probably hurt, maybe even killed, his mom, and that thought hurt so badly he had to bite his lip and focus on his breathing.

   This was never going to be cool again.

   “Make sure to pick up a spare from the weapons room,” Hodge told Jace. To Simon, he said “That was very quick thinking. What gave you the ideas of using the Sensor as a weapon?”

   Simon was about to explain that he hadn’t, that it had been a complete accident born of panic and adrenalin, but a loud laugh echoed through the room before he could say a word. Simon had been so enraptured by the books, and then Hodge, that he hadn’t noticed Alec sprawled in a red armchair over by the fireplace. “I can’t believe you buy that story, Hodge,” Alec said loudly.

   Now that he was seeing Alec in good light, Simon could see his resemblance to Isabelle. Alec had his sister’s jet-black hair, the same pale skin – even their eyebrows were the same. But Alec was entirely lacking in Isabelle’s confidence; despite his declaration he was slumped in the chair as if he hoped that, now that he had said his piece, they would all go back to ignoring him.

   He also looked as though he would quite happily have killed Simon, glaring at him as if he thought he was Scott Summers and could kill Simon with lasers.

   Simon raised his eyebrows. After facing down a real live demon, Alec wasn’t nearly as scary as he clearly thought he was.

   Hey, that would be cool, if Simon wasn’t scared of things anymore. He would have to test that.

   “I’m not quite sure what you mean, Alec.” Hodge raised an eyebrow. (He could do it too!) “Are you suggesting that he didn’t kill that demon after all?”

   “Of course he didn’t,” Alec scoffed. “Look at him – he’s a mundie, Hodge, and a little kid, at that. There’s no way he took on a Ravener.”

   “I’m seventeen, actually,” Simon said calmly. “And the next person to call me a mundie is getting punched. For the record.” He met Alec’s gaze squarely. “I have had a _really bad_ few days.”

   Jace whistled, and laughed when Alec and Simon both glared at him. “Come on, Alec, I watched him do it. Are you doubting my word?”

   Alec’s face tightened. “You just admitted you got it with Sanvi,” he argued. “ _You_ killed it, not _him_.” He glanced at Simon. “It’s not right for him to be here. Mundies aren’t allowed in the Institute, and there are good reasons for that. If anyone knew about this, we could be reported to the Clave.”

   “That’s not entirely true,” Hodge said gently. “The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Simon. He is clearly in some kind of danger.” Hugo cawed softly in agreement.

   “Raveners are search-and-destroy demons,” Alec parried. “They act under orders from warlocks or powerful demon lords. Now, what interest would a warlock or demon lord have in an ordinary mundane household?” His eyes were bright with hate when he looked at Simon. “Any thoughts?”

   Simon tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I _did_ catch my mom dancing naked in the moonlight last week, sacrificing a baby. Other than that – no, I have no idea what demons would want with us.”

   “No mundane may summon a demon,” Hodge said. “They lack the power. But there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a witch or warlock to do it for them.”

   “My mom doesn’t believe in magic.” Simon thought of Dorothea. “There’s a prophetess who lives downstairs from us, though. Maybe the demon was looking for her place instead?”

   Hodge’s eyebrows shot up. “A witch lives downstairs from you?”

   “She’s a fake,” Jace said. “She could see me, but I looked into it – there’s no reason for any warlock to be interested in her unless he’s in the market for non-functional crystal balls.” He glanced at Simon. “Having the Sight just makes her a freak,” he said cheerfully.

   The _like Simon here_ went unsaid, but Simon heard it nonetheless, and tried not to laugh.

   Hodge reached up to stroke Hugo again. “Then perhaps it is time to notify the Clave, if we have no other theories.”

   “No!” Jace said. “We can’t – ”

   “It made sense to keep Simon’s presence here a secret while we were uncertain whether he would recover,” Hodge allowed. “But now he has, and he is the first mundane” he dipped his head in apology to Simon, “to pass through the doors of the Institute in over a hundred years. You know the rules about mundane knowledge of Shadowhunters, Jace. The Clave must be informed.”

   “Absolutely,” Alec agreed. “I could get a message to my father – ”

   “He’s not a mundane,” Jace said quietly.

   Hodge’s eyebrows made a break for freedom, and Alec choked on whatever else he’d meant to say.

   “Um, excuse me,” Simon said when the silence stretched. “I object to the name, but I can’t argue with the facts. I’m not a – a Shadowhunter, or a Downworlder or anything like that.”

   “Yes,” Jace said quietly. “You are.” He turned to Hodge, and Simon saw the slight bob of his throat. The nervousness did nothing to reassure Simon. “That night – I had to use my stele. Simon was bleeding, and then he started going into shock – I had to put him under and do a preliminary – ”

   “Are you out of your _mind?!_ ” Hodge shouted, slamming his hand down on top of the desk so hard Simon wondered if it would crack. “You know what the Law says about placing Marks on mundanes! You – you of all people ought to know better!”

   “But it worked,” Jace said. “Simon, show them your arm.”

   Baffled, Simon extended both his arms. He hadn’t noticed anything in the shower, but now that he looked – there were three faint overlapping circles on his right wrist, the one that had been bitten. They looked like the scars of an injury that had happened years before.

   “See, it’s almost gone,” said Jace as Simon stared at the Mark. “It didn’t hurt him at all.”

   “That’s not the point!” Hodge could barely control his rage. “You could have turned him into a Forsaken!”

   “I can’t believe you, Jace!” Alec echoed. “Only Shadowhunters can receive Covenant Marks – they _kill_ mundanes – ”

   “Woah,” Simon interrupted, looking up from the Mark on his wrist to stare at Jace. “You could have _killed me?_ ”

   “You’re not a mundane,” Jace told him. He looked back at the other two. “Aren’t you listening? It explains why he could see us. He must have Clave blood.”

   Simon blinked. “What are you saying, that I’m adopted? Oh God, I’m having a Harry Potter moment. _Y’er a wizard, Harry_ – ”

   All three of them stared at him in bewilderment. Simon resisted the urge to flail. “This is what I’m talking about! How do you have _no_ exposure to popular culture at all?”

   “You can’t be adopted,” Hodge said, which was a relief. “No Shadowhunter child would ever be placed in the mundane foster system.”

   “Your mother must have been a Shadowhunter in exile,” Jace offered. “That explains why demons might be sent after her – she could well have had Downworld enemies.”

   “My mother wasn’t a Shadowhunter!” Simon snapped. “And – and stop talking about her in the past tense!”

   There was a long, tense silence. Even Alec, apparently, couldn’t bring himself to say anything offensive after that.

   “Your father, then,” Jace said, a clear peace offering. “If your father’s a Shadowhunter – ”

   “My dad’s _dead_ ,” Simon said harshly.

   Jace flinched.

   This time, Alec wasn’t shamed into silence. “It’s possible,” he said slowly. “If Simon’s father were a Shadowhunter, and his mother a mundane – well, we all know it’s against the Law to marry a mundie. Maybe they were in hiding.”

   Simon just couldn’t see his mom keeping such a huge secret. His eminently sensible mother, mixed up with demons and Shadowhunters? It didn’t make sense. “I really don’t think so,” he said firmly.

   “But would you know?” Jace pressed. “We all have secrets.”

   Simon thought about it. “Maybe Luke would know,” he murmured.

   “What?”

   Simon brought his attention back to the room. “Luke. He’s my mom’s oldest friend. And I should call him anyway – it’s been three days since I went missing.” He felt guilt claw at his stomach. “He must be going crazy.”

   Without waiting for permission, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and found Luke’s number. Turning away for a semblance of privacy, he brought the phone to ear.

   Luke picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

   “Luke!” The relief of a familiar voice was so strong Simon’s knees went weak. “It’s me. Simon.”

   “Simon.” Luke, too, sounded relieved – but there was something else there, too, something that made Simon frown. “You’re all right?”

   “I’m fine. I’m sorry I didn’t call you before.” Simon sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. “Luke, my mom – ”

    “I know. The police were here.”

   Simon’s heart sank. “You haven’t heard from her,” he whispered. It wasn’t a question. “What – what did the police say?”

   “Just that she was missing. Where are you?”

   “I’m – ” where? “ – in the city, with some friends. But,” he felt hopeful, “I could take a cab to your place – ”

   “No,” Luke said shortly.

   “What?” Simon couldn’t process it. “Why not?”

   “It’s too dangerous. You can’t come here.”

   Anger sparked in his gut. “Are you kidding me?” Simon asked, fighting to keep his tone even. “My mom’s _missing_ , Luke, how much worse can it possibly get?”

   “Look.” Luke’s voice was uncharacteristically hard. “Whatever your mother’s gotten herself mixed up in, it’s nothing to do with me. You’re better off where you are.”

   “You think this is mom’s fault?” Simon bristled. “I repeat: _are you kidding me?_ What the hell is wrong with you?”

   “I’m not your father, Simon. I’ve told you that before. You’re not my responsibility.”

   “Fuck you,” Simon snarled. He was nearly shaking; he wanted to break something. Preferably Luke’s scummy face. It made him even angrier that he couldn’t think of anything worse to say; all his usual wit deserted him in the face of this – this – “When this is over – if you _ever_ come near me or my mom again, I will break your fucking jaw. Go to Hell, you complete and utter _asshole_.” He hung up and shoved his phone into his pocket.

   When Jace lightly touched his arm, Simon nearly punched him. “ _What?_ ”

   Jace’s face shut down. “I take it he wasn’t happy to hear from you.”

   “Not particularly,” Simon snarked.

   “I think I’d like to have a talk with Simon,” Hodge said. “Alone,” he added firmly as Jace opened his mouth to protest.

   Alec shrugged out of his chair. “Fine. We’ll leave you to it.” He glared at Jace. “I have a few things to discuss with my _parabatai_ anyway.”

   “That’s hardly fair,” Jace objected, ignoring Alec. “I’m the one who found him. I’m the one who saved his life! You want me here, don’t you?” he appealed, turning back to Simon.

   “Right now I’d prefer to be alone, actually,” Simon said coolly. Jace and Hodge both looked shocked. “But I guess I can stand to hear some more explanations.”

   Alec laughed. “Not everyone wants you all the time, Jace.”

   “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jace said, but he sounded disappointed. Simon didn’t look at him. “Fine, then. We’ll be in the weapons room.” It wasn’t clear who he was talking to, but as the door clicked shut behind him and Alec, Simon heard Alec say “Why is the mundie wearing my clothes?”

   “Sit down,” Hodge invited. “Here, on the couch.”

   Simon was still angry enough to resent the patronising tone, but acquiesced. Being angry was easier than being hurt, but Hodge didn’t deserve either from him. “I’m sorry,” he apologised. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just – ”

   Hodge held up a hand as he sat down next to Simon. “I perfectly understand, and accept your apology.” He peered at Simon’s face. “Is there anything I can get you? Something to drink?”

   Simon shook his head. “No, thank you.” He sighed. “I want to find my mom. And then – and then I think I want to go home.” It sounded – pathetic, and childish, spoken aloud. But he thought he could forgive himself for it. Hodge certainly didn’t seem offended.

   “I think we had better try to find your mother,” he agreed, making Simon look up in sudden hope. “Perhaps we could begin by your telling me a little about what happened. The demon you and Jace dealt with in your apartment – was that the first such creature you’d ever seen? You had no inkling such creatures existed before?”

   “Not outside of rpgs,” Simon answered unthinkingly. “No, wait – there was that other one at the club, but I didn’t know what it was, then. The first time I saw Jace.”

   “Right, of course, how foolish of me to forget.” Hodge nodded. “In Pandemonium. That was the first time?”

   “Yes.”

   “And your mother never mentioned them to you – nothing about another world, perhaps, that most people cannot see? Did she seem particularly interested in myths, fairy tales, legends of the fantastic – ”

   “No. Well, she read some, sometimes. People would give her these books, but mostly she gave them away, or to me. She only kept a few,” Simon said, remembering his mom’s bookshelf. “ _The Necessary Beggar_. Books like that.”

   “I know it,” Hodge allowed, making Simon smile.

   “But she’s – she’s the most normal person ever,” Simon said, trying to find the words to perfectly encapsulate his mother. “She’s so down to earth. I mean, you wouldn’t expect that, from an artist. But she is.”

   “Normal people don’t generally find their homes ransacked by demons,” Hodge said gently.

   Simon slumped against the sofa. “Could it have been a mistake?”

   “If it had been a mistake, and you an ordinary boy, you would not have seen the demon that attacked you,” Hodge said. “Or if you had, your mind would have processed it as something else entirely: a vicious dog, or another human being. That you could see it, that it spoke to you – ”

   “It was speaking to Jace, really,” Simon corrected absently. “It – it talked about eating me.”

   Hodge did not comment on this. “Raveners are generally under the control of a stronger demon. They’re not very bright or capable on their own,” Hodge explained. “Did it say what its master was looking for?”

   Simon frowned, trying to think back. It was all such a horrible blur in his head. “It said...it said that Valentine hadn’t warned it that there would be Shadowhunters there.”

   Hodge jerked upright, so abruptly that the raven on his shoulder launched himself into the air with an annoyed caw. “ _Valentine?_ Are you sure?”

   “Yes,” Simon said. “I heard the name in Pandemonium from the – the other demon, too.”

   “It’s a name we all know,” Hodge said shortly. His hands were trembling very slightly, Simon noticed with a start. Hugo, back on Hodge’s shoulder, ruffed his feathers uneasily.

   “Who is he?” Simon asked. “A demon?”

   “No. Valentine is – _was_ – a Shadowhunter.”

   Simon held up his hand, feeling tired. “Let me guess. He’s the Voldemort of Shadowhunters, right?” He thought back to what Jace had said in the club. _‘He’s in Hell, and you can join him there!’_ “And dead?”

   “Yes.” Hodge looked startled by Simon’s deductions.

   “Well, that’s a relief.” Simon chewed his lip. “He can’t come back like Voldemort though, right? It’s just someone else using his name?”

   “It’s possible someone is using his name to send a message,” Hodge allowed. He stood up and paced to his desk, hands clasped behind his back. “This would certainly be the time to do it.”

   “Why?” Simon asked warily.

   “Because of the Accords.”

   “Jace mentioned peace negotiations,” Simon remembered. “Is that them? Peace with who?”

   “Downworlders,” Hodge murmured. He looked back at Simon. “Forgive me. This must be confusing for you.”

   Simon laughed. “I’m getting used to it,” he said, and tried not to feel guilty for the bitterness in his voice, and Hodge’s subsequent flinch.

   Hodge leaned against his desk, stroking Hugo. “Downworlders are those who share the Shadow World with us. We have always lived in uneasy peace with them.”

   Simon nodded. “Jace told me about them. Vampires, werewolves...”

   “And the Fair Folk,” Hodge said. “Faeries. And Lilith’s children, being half-demon, are warlocks.”

   “What about Shadowhunters?” Simon asked. “Jace said you’re more than human, but he didn’t really explain.”

   “We are sometimes called the Nephilim,” said Hodge. Simon recognised the term, but it seemed ruder to interrupt Hodge than it had Jace – maybe because, in his tweed suit, Hodge reminded him of a college professor, and the scar on his face made Simon think his knowledge was hard-won. “In the Bible they were the offspring of humans and angels. The legend of the origin of Shadowhunters is that they were created more than a thousand years ago, when humans were being overrun by demon invasions from other worlds. A warlock summoned the Angel Raziel, who mixed some of his own blood with the blood of men in a cup, and gave it to those men to drink. Those who drank the Angel’s blood became Shadowhunters, as did their children and their children’s children. The cup thereafter was known as the Mortal Cup. Though the legend may not be fact, what is true is that through the years, when Shadowhunter ranks were depleted, it was always possible to create more Shadowhunters using the Cup.”

   It sounded so impossible, like something from a manga. That this was the history of a _real people_ – a people with their own country, their own culture – was mind-boggling. “ _Was_ possible?” he asked quietly.

   “The Cup is gone,” said Hodge. “Destroyed by Valentine, just before he died. He set a great fire and burned himself to death, along with his wife and children. Scorched the land black. No one will build there still. They say the land is cursed.”

   “Is it?” Simon asked, curious. Demons were real. Maybe curses were too; what did he know?

   “Possibly. The Clave hands down curses on occasion for breaking the Law. Valentine broke the greatest Law of all – he took up arms against his fellow Shadowhunters and slew them. He and his group, the Circle, killed dozens of their brethren along with hundreds of Downworlders at the last Accords. They were only barely defeated.”

   “I’m sure I’m going to regret asking, but why would he do that?”

   “He didn’t approve of the Accords. He despised Downworlders and felt that they should be slaughtered, wholesale, to keep this world pure for human beings. Though the Downworlders are not demons, not invaders, he felt that they were demonic in nature, and that that was enough. The Clave did not agree – they felt the assistance of Downworlders was necessary if we were ever to drive off demonkind for good. And who could argue, really, that the Fair Folk do not belong in this world, when they have been here longer than we have?”

   It did seem a particularly stupid argument. “What about the Accords? Did they get signed?”

   “Yes, they were signed. When the Downworlders saw the Clave turn on Valentine and his Circle in their defence, they realised the Shadowhunters were not their enemies. Ironically, with his insurrection Valentine made the Accords possible.” Hodge sat down behind his desk. “I apologise; this must be a dull history lesson for you. That was Valentine. A firebrand, a visionary, a man of great personal charm and conviction. A killer. Now someone is invoking his name...”

   “It’s not boring at all,” Simon assured him. “It’s – don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s fascinating. There’s this whole other world I don’t know about, and I want to know it all.” Even if he felt bad for being so interested, when his mom was MIA. “It’s just...what does this have to do with me?”

   Hodge stood up again. “I don’t know. But I shall do what I can to find out. I will send messages to the Clave and also to the Silent Brothers. They may wish to speak with you.”

   Simon wasn’t at all sure he wanted to speak with people called the Silent Brothers, because that sounded incredibly creepy, but he didn’t protest. “Do you think it’s safe for me to go home?” he asked instead. Although now he thought about it, the idea of facing his mother’s destroyed paintings again made him feel sick and tired.

   Hodge looked concerned. “No, I – I wouldn’t think that would be wise.”

   He really was Dumbledore without the beard. Simon had never heard anyone else say _wise_. “What about just a quick pit stop? If I’m going to stay here, I can’t keep borrowing Alec’s clothes. He might put itching powder in them.”

   “I’m sure Alec would do no such thing,” Hodge said. “However, if Jace will agree to it, he may escort you there. For a _short_ visit,” he stressed.

   Simon nodded: it was a very acceptable compromise. “How do I get to the weapons room?” That was where Jace had said he and Alec were going.

   Hodge smiled crookedly. “Church will take you.”

   “Church...?” Simon looked around, aside from himself and Hodge – and Hugo and the cat by the door – the library was empty.

   “Oh, the cat!” Simon face palmed. “I forgot.” He got up from the sofa. “Thank you,” he told Hodge.

   “You are very welcome, Simon,” Hodge said gravely.

   The cat – Church – rose as Simon walked towards him, fur rippling like liquid. With a meow that somehow managed to be imperious Church led Simon into the hall and away.


	5. Chapter 5

   If the library had belonged in Hogwarts, then the weapons room was like a cross between Dragon Age and one of the Final Fantasy games. Brushed metal walls were nearly invisible behind the racks of weapons – every kind of sword, dagger, spear, bayonet, and even bows, both long- and cross-, had their place. Quivers of arrows hung neatly next to them. Leather armour was stacked carefully in boxes where it wasn’t hung on mannequins, and punching bags hung from the ceiling, far away from the central space. Everything smelled of metal and leather and polish, but Simon couldn’t see any guns and that seemed pretty stupid. Or did guns not work on demons?

   Alec and Jace, who was now wearing shoes, sat at a long table at the centre of the room, heads bent close together over something they had between them. At the sound of the door, they both looked up. “Where’s Hodge?” Alec demanded.

   Simon smiled as sweetly as he could. “Doing your mom.” He looked at Jace. “Hodge says I can go home to grab a few things if you’ll come with me.”

   “Don’t I get a pretty please?” Jace asked, raising an eyebrow.

   “With whipped cream and a cherry on top,” Simon answered immediately.

   Jace smirked, and then seemed to catch himself. Simon frowned at him, but Jace ducked his head to examine whatever was on the table. “We can go after we put the finishing touches on these,” he said.

   Simon walked forward. “What are ‘these’?”

   Jace moved aside so Simon could see. Three long slim dowels of faintly glowing silver rested between Jace and Alec. They didn’t look at all dangerous, unless they were glowing because they were radioactive. Since Shadowhunters apparently didn’t use guns, Simon doubted they had made the jump to nuclear weapons, however useful they might be.

   “Well, these ones are finished,” Jace explained, pointing to each one as he named it. “Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf. And this one,” he pointed at another, “isn’t quite done yet. They’re seraph blades.”

   “You used Sanvi on that Ravener,” Simon remembered.

   Jace nodded, grinning. “See, Alec? Someone appreciates me.”

   Alec glared at them both. Simon ignored him. “It doesn’t look like a knife now,” he pointed out. “Is it magic?”

   Alec exchanged his look of annoyance for one of horror.

   “The funny thing about mundies,” Jace said to nobody in particular, “is how obsessed with magic they are for a bunch of people who don’t even know what the word means.”

   Simon leaned over and punched him – not too hard – on the shoulder. “I warned you,” he said to Jace’s surprised face. “Also, next time you can just say ‘no’. Can we head home now?”

   “Jace,” Alec exhaled, but Jace ignored him.

   “I suppose going through your mother’s things is one way to find out whether or not she’s a Shadowhunter,” he mused. He grinned crookedly. “If we go now, we should have another three, four hours of daylight.”

   “Do you want me to come with you?” Alec asked as Simon and Jace headed for the door. Simon glanced back at him. He was half out of his seat already, eyes expectant. He reminded Simon sharply of a puppy.

   “No,” Jace said without turning around, “that’s all right. Simon and I can handle this on our own.”

   _If looks could kill..._ Simon thought. The look Alec shot him would have had him six feet under and rotted to dust, if it could have. Feeling petty and childish, Simon stuck his tongue out at him.

   Alec gaped, and the door shut between them.

   Jace lead them down the hall and into a marble-floored foyer like the one in Simon’s complex. But this one hadn’t been neglected for decades; the dust that covered most of the Institute hadn’t intruded here. An old-fashioned elevator was set into one wall. Jace pushed the button for it and it creaked as it rose from some unimaginable depths to meet them.

   “Jace?” Simon asked.

   “Yeah?”

   “How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood?”

   The elevator arrived with a final groan, and Jace unlatched the gate. The inside reminded Simon uneasily of a cage, but he supposed that was because it was one. Little bits of gilt lingered on random bars. “I guessed,” Jace said as he closed the door behind them. “It seemed like the most likely explanation.”

   “Oh,” Simon said mildly, and punched him.

   Only this time it wasn’t a joke, and Jace hit the bars with a screech of metal. He didn’t make a sound, and Simon was pretty sure he never would have been able to do that if Jace had been on guard – but he hadn’t been, and now he was holding his jaw with raw surprise written all over his face.

   Simon folded his arms over his chest and stared at the door, waiting for it to reach their level. “Next time, don’t take risks with my life without asking me first,” he said blandly. “I accept that I needed some kind of medical attention. But next time: _ask first_.”

   Slowly, Jace straightened. He didn’t say anything.

   By the time he reached forward to open the door Simon felt really, really awful. He’d never hit someone in his life, not even Adam Williams who had bullied him in fourth grade. And this was Jace! Who had saved his life!

   “I’m so sor – ” he began, but Jace stopped him.

   “No, you – you were right. I shouldn’t have done that. Not without asking you.” Jace grinned. “But you only get one free shot. Next time...”

   Simon laughed. “Next time, we’ll set a date and call it a duel.” He felt lighter than he had since he’d woken up in a strange bed. Hell, maybe his mom was at home. Maybe she would be there when he and Jace walked in.

   His heart sank again. She wouldn’t be. If she had reappeared she would have called.

   _Unless she doesn’t have her phone,_ Simon told himself hopefully, but the moment was gone.

*

   They spent the first part of the train ride to Brooklyn in easy enough silence. There didn’t seem to be anything to say, and Simon wasn’t in the mood for small talk. He wanted his mom. He wanted her to be okay, and it was hard to think about anything but that.

   In an effort to distract himself, Simon swept his eyes over the rest of the train carriage. Besides himself and Jace, there were a couple of girls giggling together and sneaking glances at the two boys.

   No, Simon realised with a snort of wry amusement; not at _them_. At _Jace_.

   Well, was that really so surprising? Jace wasn’t porcelain-perfect like Alec was, but Simon would be lying if he claimed the blond Shadowhunter wasn’t good looking. _Very_ good looking; Simon tried desperately not to remember the dreams he’d had after Pandemonium, the ones where Jace’s honey-coloured eyes had featured a little too predominantly. It really wasn’t Simon’s fault that Jace looked good covered in blood splatter – even when it was demon ichor instead of normal red blood.

   Jace’s eyebrows rose gracefully, and Simon knew he was blushing.

   “Anything I can help you with?” Jace drawled.

   Simon swallowed and cast about for an appropriate distraction. “Those girls over there are staring at you,” he blurted.

   Really? That was the best he could come up with? He wanted to face-palm himself on principle.

   Jace smirked and, yes, fine, that was a good look on him. “Of course they are,” he purred. “I am stunningly attractive.”

   _You really are,_ Simon agreed, and only just stopped himself from saying it out loud. “No, honestly, tell me what you really think,” he deadpanned instead.

   Jace shrugged. “Only ugly people count modesty as a virtue,” he said confidingly. “The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. Like me.” He winked at the two girls, who chirped like birds and hid behind their hair.

   Simon laughed. He should have been annoyed, or at least a little disgusted by Jace’s arrogance, but instead it was just funny. It made a nice change from Clary’s firm belief in her own drabness; it was kind of a relief to meet someone who knew and flaunted what they looked like.

   Jace looked pleased by Simon’s laughter.

   “How come they can see you, though?” Simon asked, leaning back in his seat. The next stop was theirs.

   “Glamours are a pain to use. Sometimes we don’t bother.”

   Jace was still happy when they left the train. Out on the street again, he plucked one of the seraph blades from his pocket and started flipping it back and forth between his fingers and across his knuckles, like a coin trick. He was even humming, something that sounded maddeningly familiar but which Simon couldn’t place.

   Simon breathed deeply and tipped his head back as they walked up the hill to the house. He was feeling good again, as if Jace’s good humour was infecting him, and he liked it. But he couldn’t deny the frission of fear as they passed the box hedges around the complex.

   And it got worse. There was no sign of what had happened, not from the outside at least: no police tape, no broken glass. The brownstone house looked warm, touched with gold by the afternoon light, but it seemed _too_ picturesque, like a serial killer in a beautiful suit – as though it were hiding something.

   Jace reached into his jeans pocket and drew out another Sensor. Simon couldn’t believe he’d mistaken it for a phone; despite the similarity of its plastic and metal shape, it was covered in tiny runes, with no numbers in sight. “How does that thing work, anyway?”

   “It picks up frequencies, like a radio does. But these frequencies are demonic in origin.”

   Simon nodded. “Demon shortwave.”

   Jace glanced at him. “Something like that.” He held the Sensor out in front of him as he approached, and almost immediately it started clicking.

   Simon raised his eyebrows. “I’m guessing that’s not good.”

   Jace frowned. “It’s picking up trace activity, but that could just be left over from the other night. I’m not getting anything strong enough for there to be demons present now.”

   “If you’re sure.” But Jace was the Shadowhunter, not Simon – no matter what was in his veins – so he deferred to the other boy’s expertise. When he reached for the door, keys extended, Jace placed a hand on his arm.

   “I’ll go first.”

   Very gently, because he understood and appreciated the gesture, Simon pushed Jace’s arm away. Even though the thought of facing another demon made him want to be sick, even though it made adrenalin pool cold and venomous in his stomach – “I can’t hide behind you.”

   Jace glared at him. “This is not the time for pride,” he started, but Simon cut him off.

   “It’s – it’s not about pride. I swear. It’s...” Simon struggled to find the words – or, not the words, because those were easy and obvious. But words that he could safely say, ones that wouldn’t turn things awkward, wouldn’t weigh between them like stones. “It’s not that I’m not terrified. I am, okay? But if I let it rule me, it’s always going to. And I have the feeling that sorting this out – ” finding his mother, and whoever was sending demons after them, and maybe even discovering more about having Shadowhunter blood, “ – is going to take a while. I can’t...” He ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t afford to get into the habit of being scared,” he said finally.

   Instead of answering, Jace pushed something into Simon’s hand. “Take this, then.”

   Simon glanced down. Jace had handed him one of the seraph blades. “Um... I’m touched, really, but this isn’t what I – ” 

   “Say its name – Simiel – and it will extend,” Jace said over him. His gold eyes were less honey and more yellow diamond, now – hard and unyielding. “You’re not going in there without it.”

   Uncertain, Simon folded his fingers around the cool crystal. The round ingot fit perfectly into his palm, and it felt – important. Symbolic of something larger. He didn’t know enough about Shadowhunters or their weapons to be able to say for sure, but he felt like – like it wasn’t normal for Jace to be handing over a seraph blade. Especially not to some untrained _mundie_. “I think you’ll regret that when I take my own eye out, but thank you.”

   Jace dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Now, can we go?”

   The interior was dark, and for a moment Simon froze on the threshold, adrenalin-certain that something would spring at him from the shadows if he entered. But he shoved himself forward, taking in the bulb that had yet to be replaced, and the disgustingly dirty skylight. It was those, not demons, that had cloaked the foyer in darkness.

   “Wait,” Jace ordered as Simon was about to climb the stairs. The Shadowhunter ran his fingers over the banister, and even in the bad light Simon could tell that they came away wet.

   “Is – is that – ”

   “Blood,” Jace said simply. He rubbed his fingers together, frowning.

   Simon swallowed hard. _Wet_ meant _fresh_. “Could it – do you think it’s my mom’s?” he asked lowly. Could Jocelyn have come back here, only to run into – what? Another Ravener?

_No. No. The world would not be that cruel._

   “No way to tell.” Jace lowered his arm. “Come on.” He jerked his chin up the stairs, and this time Simon didn’t protest when Jace took point.

   Simon clutched the seraph blade Jace had lent – or given? – him. “Simiel,” he whispered. It extended with the softest _snick_ into a shard of ice or starlight that was more short-sword than knife, but if Jace heard it he pretended not to.

   The door to his apartment was closed, but unlocked. Jace gestured sharply but this time, with Simiel glowing like starlight on black water in his hand, Simon refused to hide in the blond’s shadow. Jace scowled but Simon ignored him – and his own pounding pulse – and stepped inside.

   The hallway was dark, almost pitch black, but Simon had lived here his whole life; he could have found his way around blindfolded and hopping on one leg. Automatically he turned into the sitting room, drawn by some masochistic instinct to look over the damage again.

   But it was gone. Not just the mess, but – _everything_. The room was stripped bare, so that Simon felt as if he were viewing a flat on the market, not standing in the middle of his own home. Even the curtains were gone; even the carpet.

   Without a word Simon spun on his heel and moved into the kitchen, Jace padding silently beside him like a tiger. It made Simon forget to be afraid, having this sleek, powerful creature at his side. _Tiger, Tiger, burning bright..._

   The kitchen was just as empty.

   “I will allow,” Simon said slowly, “that a refrigerator might be useful for storing bodies, if you took the shelves out. But I can’t think of any reason demons would want a microwave.” He paused. “Cannibal microwave meals?”

   “I’ve no idea, but I’m not sensing any demonic presences right now. I’d say they’re long gone.”

   Simon breathed slowly and carefully. “Let me check my room,” he said quietly. “And then – then I guess we can get out of here.”

   He wasn’t sure what he was expecting as he made his way between rooms. Would his room be naked, too? In his head, it was untouched, exactly as he’d left it, but he knew full well that was only because he couldn’t imagine it unmade. A person’s room was their sanctuary, and the thought of some interloper – _demons_ – going through his things, _taking_ them, made him feel violated. His room was the summation of himself. It couldn’t just be – gone.

   He paused a moment too long with his hand on the handle of his bedroom door.

   It blew outward with a burst of sound, slamming into Simon and sending him flying; he hit the wall, and Simiel tumbled uselessly from his fingers. His ears were full of roaring.

   Jace fumbled in his pocket, his face a mask of surprise. Framed in the doorway was an enormous thing that Simon at first thought was an Uruk-hai. But no, it wasn’t as ugly as the Tolkien orcs, and it looked – it looked _human,_ mostly, just corpse-pale and filthy.

   The enormous axe in its hand didn’t look too clean either.

   “Sansanvi!” Jace shouted, and the little cylinder became as long as his forearm, wicked as a shard of glass. It lashed out and the creature roared, stumbling backwards clumsily.

   Instantly Jace spun and raced for Simon. Without pausing, he wrenched Simon up by his arm and shoved him ahead.

   “Wait!” Simon yelled. He scooped Simiel up from the ground before Jace – who hadn’t let go of him – could pull him out of range.

   “Are you mad?!” Jace shouted. The thing was coming after them, its footsteps so heavy they vibrated through the floorboards. But despite that it was _fast_ ; Simon didn’t have to look back to know it was gaining. He was breathlessly terrified, but also disconnected, as though he were running through molasses; the world was strange and heavy and something apart from himself.

   _This just can’t be real._

   They hurtled through the entryway and onto the wide landing. Jace whipped around and slammed the door closed with a kick. Simon heard the lock engage and clutched the stair’s banister, trying to catch his breath, figuring that now, they must be safe –

   The door shook on its hinges; Simon yelped, and immediately clapped his hand over his mouth. But Jace didn’t notice. “Get downstairs!” he ordered. His eyes were bright, almost manic, as if he’d just hit the high of some drug. “Get out of the – ”

   Another blow came, and this time the door surrendered; it flew free of its hinges, and if Jace hadn’t moved quicker than thought he would have been hit. Abruptly Jace was on the other side of the landing, as if frames had been cut from a film – one moment here; the next, elsewhere, with nothing in between. He shouted something, but Simon couldn’t hear what it was, not over the creature’s bellows as it burst from the doorway, swinging its axe.

   “ _Jace!_ ” Simon shouted. Jace only laughed.

   The insult of it drove the creature mad. It hurled itself at Jace, abandoning its axe in favour of raising its bowling-ball fists. And Jace –

   Spun, like a dancer, flowing out of the way like he was made of water, and as the giant bowled past him he slashed Sansanvi across its shoulder.

   The monster roared. Simon scrambled to his feet, his palm sweaty against Simiel’s cool crystal. He didn’t know what to do. Jace had told him to run, but Simon – he couldn’t do that, couldn’t leave Jace to face this thing on his own. It didn’t matter that Jace was trained for this, that he knew what he was doing when Simon didn’t. He couldn’t abandon the guy who’d saved his life.

   Jace was circling, darting back and forth like a cat, avoiding the monster’s clumsy snatches. Simon could hear the ocean in his ears, and he thought he might be shaking; he felt frozen and hot, both at once.

   _It’s just like a video game. It’s just like a video game_ , Simon chanted silently, but even his mental voice was edging closer to hysterical than calm. _Come on. Come on. Come_ on _, you said you weren’t going to be scared, you said that, come on, you can do this, just move, just move, just – move –_

   He ran forward, nearly as clumsily as the giant. He had enough sense to skirt around in the dimmer parts of the landing. _It’s just like a video game, it’s just like a video game!_

   Thank Harkness this house used to be grand. If the landing hadn’t had the square footage to rival Simon’s apartment... If he and Jace and the Forsaken had been stuck in a balcony-sized space...

   Jace lunged, his blond hair and seraph blade glinting in the faint light. Simon didn’t see the hit, only heard the monster bellow, bull-like, and saw the spray of red blood, saw Jace’s wild, elated grin. 

   Simon stared. The monster swayed on its feet, its bulbous, black-latticed face twisted into a grimace of shock. Then it fell, forward, hands out and grasping. Jace moved, but this time he wasn’t quite quick enough, Simon saw it coming, it was going to grab Jace and they would go down together, down the stairs and into the dark –

   That was – unacceptable, that was completely unacceptable, no, Simon’s mind flashed and sparked at a thousand light-years a second and no, no, _no_ , he sprinted the short distance and jumped from his toes, just like a springboard. Simiel plunged into the creature’s back and Simon heard a snarl like that of a wild animal, fierce and vicious and full of rage.

   He didn’t realise until later that the sound had come from his own lips.

   The force of his leap drove the seraph blade in deep, but he’d leapt at an angle and the Forsaken half-turned in mid-air, arms thick as trees reaching for him in its death-throes. One caught Simon in the shoulder and flung him clear – not far, but he landed hard on his back, gasping at the shock of dull pain.

   Simiel glittered in the monster’s back, at the top of its spine.

   Before Simon could really process what had just happened Jace was kneeling at his side,   “Simon!” His voice was panicked. “What’s wrong? Did it get you?” He ran his hands over Simon’s shoulders, arms, his chest, frantic. “I can’t see – where are you hurt, Simon, _where are you hurt_ – ”

   “Wh-what?” Simon sat upright, groaning at the ache in his muscles. “What are you talking abou – ”

   He glanced down, and his heart nearly stopped. His shirt was covered in blood. Christ, _had_ he been hurt, had he cut himself with Simiel somehow?

   He swallowed hard. “No – no, Jace, calm down, it’s – I don’t think any of it’s mine. Stop that,” he added sharply, and Jace withdrew his hands as if burned. “Just – just give me a second, okay?”

   Jace nodded mutely, his eyes wide, and Simon took a deep breath and banished the memory of Jace’s hands on him.

   “Alec’s going to kill me for getting blood on his shirt, isn’t he?” he asked finally, when he thought he was more or less solid again. He was beginning to get the adrenalin shakes, and his arm felt bruised, but – but he felt okay.

   “Forget Alec, _I’m_ going to murder you if you keep stealing my kills,” Jace said lightly. “You’re beginning to make me look bad.” Despite his tone, there was a wild look around his eyes. Simon wondered if the same expression was etched around his own, and reminded himself that adrenalin did not justify pulling the Shadowhunter down and laying one on him. But God, he wanted to. Just, right now – right now he desperately wanted to be close to somebody.

   He took another deep breath. Jace wasn’t really the one he wanted, but thank God Clary wasn’t here. “Yeah, well. You’ll just have to step up your game.” Simon pushed gently at Jace’s shoulder. “I mean, so far, I have to admit that I’m not very impressed.”

   Jace looked scandalised, and Simon laughed. It was a short bark of a laugh, and it sounded a little hysterical even to his own ears, but – still.

   And then his eyes found the corpse again, and he sobered. “Um, Jace – I thought the bodies vanished when you killed them?”

   Jace shook his head. “No, I said that’s what happened to demons.” Standing up, he went and retrieved Simiel from the Forsaken’s back. He wiped it on his shirt, and when he handed it back to Simon it was no longer a knife, just a little dowel of crystal again. Simon clutched it so tightly his knuckles turned bone-white. “That wasn’t a demon. It was a Forsaken – which is what you get when you put Marks on a mundane. If they don’t die outright.” He nudged the body with his boot. “We’re going to have to report this to Hodge,” he said. “He’ll freak out.” He sounded delighted by the prospect.

   Simon was more concerned with the dawning horror in his chest. “You risked turning me into _that?_ ” he demanded.

   Jace pulled a face. “I thought we were past that?”

   Simon ground his teeth, but it was true. He had punched Jace and Jace had allowed it. The rules of Guy Code said that the issue was dealt with. “Well, if it’s dead, I still want to go check my room,” he said firmly.

   Jace looked up at the ceiling as if appealing to God. “There might be more of them,” he told the roof conversationally. “If you insist on going back in there, this time I really am sweeping it first.”

   “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a familiar voice shrilled. “There are more of them where the first one came from.”

   Jace whirled to stare down the steps. Simon struggled to his feet and padded up next to him, peering into the gloom. “Madame Dorothea?” he asked uncertainly.

   The old woman nodded her turban-crowned head regally. Standing in the doorway of her apartment, she was half-drowned in purple silk and gold chains that shone in the dark.

   “But...” Jace was looking confused.

   “More Forsaken?” Simon asked.

   “Indeed,” Dorothea replied, with a cheerfulness that seemed spiteful in its intensity. “You have made a mess, haven’t you? I’m sure you weren’t planning on cleaning up, either. Typical.”

   “But you’re a _mundane_ ,” Jace protested.

   “Nobody cares,” Simon told him.

   “So observant,” Dorothea added. “The Clave really broke the mould with you.”

   Jace’s expression was morphing from bewilderment to anger. “You know about the Clave?” he demanded. “You knew about them, and you knew there were Forsaken in this house, and you didn’t notify them? Just the existence of Forsaken is a crime against the Covenant – ”

   “Neither Clave nor Covenant have ever done anything for me,” Madame Dorothea sniffed. “I owe them nothing.” For a moment her familiar New York accent slid into something else – something deep and thick.

   “Jace, shut up,” Simon ordered tiredly. The blood was wet, making his shirt stick to his skin, and he desperately wanted to change into something clean, desperately did not want to think about what had just happened. _It used to be a person. That thing was –_ “Madame Dorothea, do you know what happened to my mom?”

   Dorothea’s earrings swung wildly as she shook her head, glinting in the dim light of the skylight. “My advice to you,” she said quietly, with something far too close to pity on her face, “is to forget about your mother. She’s gone.”

   A bullet couldn’t have hurt as much, and Simon stumbled back as if he really had been shot. Cold. Everything was instantly cold and dizzying and – “She’s dead?” he whispered. No. Please, please, please – _no_.

   “No,” Dorothea said slowly. Reluctantly. “I’m sure she’s still alive. For now.”

   Simon closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands to them, fingers slipping stickily beneath his glasses. _Oh thank God._ He could breathe again. His knees felt weak. He swallowed. “Then I have to find her.” It was that simple.

   He lowered his hands when Jace touched his elbow, his face concerned.

   “I have to find her,” Simon said again, to Jace this time.

   Jace nodded. “We will,” he promised, gently, as though Simon might break if he’d heard any other words. Simon couldn’t fault him for his fear; it seemed a valid one, just then.

   “Do you know where she is?” Simon asked, turning back to Dorothea.

   She held up her hand in a warding gesture. “I don’t want to involve myself in Shadowhunter business.”

   The cold still lingered under his skin, like ice that hadn’t quite melted. The chill of it stabbed into his brain and his voice cut the air like a dagger, like Simiel, hard and arctic and so ruthless that it scared him. “I don’t give a damn about ‘Shadowhunter business’. I don’t give a damn about the Clave. _I want to find my mother_.”

   For a moment, no one spoke. Jace looked shocked; Dorothea, calculating. Simon didn’t take his eyes from her face. He didn’t threaten her. Right then, he felt as though he didn’t need to, as if he _was_ the threat, standing there on the stairs covered in blood with a seraph blade in his hand.

   Finally, Dorothea nodded, and Simon felt the tension waterfall out of his chest. “I suppose you might as well come in,” she said slowly. “Why don’t you and your pet Shadowhunter go and change out of those bloody clothes – I happen to know they left your room alone – ” Simon thought about asking how she knew that, but then changed his mind, “and then we can have tea like civilised people.”

   Simon dipped his head. “That would be wonderful,” he said honestly as Jace bristled. Without thinking he clapped his hand over the blond’s mouth, before he could say something to make Dorothea change her mind.

   Dorothea’s eyes glittered with amusement. “I think I’m going to enjoy this,” she murmured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays, every one! As a Christmas present, have two chapters at once!
> 
> Now, for the notes.
> 
> In City of Bones, Jace warns Clary that it takes years of training before even a Shadowhunter can touch and use a seraph blade safely. However, in City of Ashes, he hands her one without even blinking, and although this is sort of explained in City of Glass – Jace mentions how surprised he was that she could use it, and it is put down to the angelic blood Valentine fed a pregnant Jocelyn – that explanation never really satisfied me. (Why would he hand her one in the first place if he thought it might kill her?) Suffice to say that the way seraph blades work and are used in this fic differ from canon. I won’t explain how yet, but you’ll find out.
> 
> Also, Simiel is the name of one of the Archangels, as listed by Pope Saint Gregory 1st.


	6. Chapter 6

   Simon dropped his hand from Jace’s mouth the moment Dorothea turned away, and quickly pressed his fingers to his own lips, warning Jace to be quiet. Jace’s eyes flashed, sunlight on topaz, but he held his tongue until the seeress closed her apartment door behind her.

   “Let’s get one thing straight here,” he snarled then. “ _You are not in charge_. You don’t know what you’re doing!” He jabbed his finger towards Dorothea’s door. “You just gave her time to prepare Angel knows what in there!”

   Simon blinked. “What, tea and biscuits?”

   “ ‘What, tea and biscuits?’” Jace echoed mockingly. “What about a _trap_ , Simon. She knows about the Clave and Forsaken; she could be _anything_.”

   “You checked her out!” Simon protested.

   “I really didn’t,” Jace drawled. “She’s not my type.”

   Simon resisted the urge to smack him. “You know what I mean! You told Hodge she was a fake!”

   “Well, clearly I missed something!” Jace hissed.

   Simon threw his hands up. “Then we’ll go in prepared for her to try and turn us into frogs. She can’t surprise us if we’re expecting it, right?”

   “Once you’ve spent a bit more time in our world,” Jace said, “you won’t ask me that again.”

   That was ominous. Simon licked his lips nervously, and told himself to stop reading into things when Jace followed the gesture. The human eye was attracted (not like that!) to motion, that was all. Everyone always thought watching someone’s tongue meant they _like_ -liked you, but it didn’t.

   He really needed to call Clary.

   “Well, I’m going back inside. I want clean clothes.”

   Jace’s eyes snapped back to his. “Did you not listen to a word I just said?” he demanded. “She _told_ you to go to your room. It could be a – ”

   “ – Trap, yes, thank you, I realise that,” Simon snapped. “But then I’ll be a frog, and you won’t have to deal with the annoying little mundie anymore.” Shoving Simiel into his pocket, he turned on his heel and went back into the apartment. “And you should probably call Hodge,” he called over his shoulder. “Someone should probably come move the – the body. That’s another thing you Shadowhunters do, right?”

   He slipped through the doorway without listening for Jace’s reply.

*

   Dorothea had, however she’d known it, told the truth, more or less. Simon’s room had clearly been gone through, but as far as he could tell nothing was missing, and it wasn’t all that much messier than when he’d left it. 

   Simon entered slowly, brandishing Simiel in front of him like a tennis racquet and feeling like a dork. It was impossible to believe that he’d killed a Forsaken just a few minutes ago; it was easier to just not think about it, about the thick, grinding _crunch_ of the seraph blade shoving through bone and _yeah, no, let’s look for clothes now!_

   Why hadn’t they taken his stuff, too? Simon wondered as he rummaged through his wardrobe. The rest of the apartment was stripped bare, but they – whoever They were – had only searched through his things. It was weird.

   He put Simiel down for a second – but within reach on his bed – to pull Alec’s bloodstained shirt over his head. He shuddered as the clingy fabric came free; the wet, sucking sensation made his skin crawl. He tossed the thing in his laundry basket and pulled on a grey tee. It had a picture of the Monopoly Man holding a sword and a staff in either hand on it, above the caption YOU SHALL NOT PASS GO, and the moment he put it on he felt like himself again.

   He snatched up Simiel and spun around at the sound of a knock behind him. Jace, lounging in the doorway like a cover model, raised an eyebrow. “At least you aren’t entirely stupid,” he commented. His eyes scanned Simon’s shirt, and he frowned. “If you can’t pass, why is it telling you to go?”

   “Oh my God, go away.” Simon waved his hand at Jace like a lord dismissing a servant. “Just go.”

   “But I can’t pass!” Jace mocked.

   Simon bit his tongue to keep from laughing. “Go to jail,” he ordered.

   Jace frowned again. “I’m too pretty for gaol.”

   “No, it’s – see, it’s not funny when you don’t get it.” Simon sighed. “Look, I have to find some proper pants.” Jace raised his other eyebrow as if to say _then get on with it._ Simon rolled his eyes. “And some underwear, you _utter_ moron, because someone forgot to give me some this morning. So go away or turn your back already.”

   “You’ve been – ”

   Simon folded his arms across his chest. “Walking around without any all day? Pretty much.”

   Jace looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Ah...right, then,” he said awkwardly. “I’ll just – give you a minute.”

   “Please,” Simon drawled, trying – not very successfully – not to smirk.

   Jace glared at him, and stalked away into the hallway and out of sight.

   Good enough for Simon. Removing his wallet, phone and keys from his pockets, he shucked the trousers – Alec probably wasn’t going to want those back – and dug out his favourite Batman boxers.

   “I’m Batman,” he murmured, finding the matching socks and pulling them onto his feet. He’d killed a Forsaken. The Ravener was up for debate, but the Forsaken – that was definitely him.

   “Are you decent now?” Jace called.

   “Just a second!” Simon quickly found a pair of jeans and pulled them on. “There you go, my virtue is safe.”

   “Please,” Jace scoffed. “No virtue is safe around this face.” His head appeared in the doorway, and then the rest of him. “Well? Can we go now?”

   “I thought you didn’t want to talk to Dorothea?” Simon searched for a rucksack, and then looked mournfully around his room. There was so much he couldn’t take. He wanted to grab his well-thumbed copies of _Harry Potter_ for the Shadowhunters to read, and drag his Playstation along because it would have been priceless to see Jace struggling with an on-screen demon. But either would take up too much room, never mind both. He sighed and started packing clothes like a normal person. “You seem very eager for someone who’s not interested.”

   Jace ignored him and moved around the room, occasionally poking things. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up a dark blue display case the size of a jewellery box. Behind the glass window coins glittered. “This doesn’t look like mundie money.”

   Simon glanced up. “It’s a set of Alliance coins from World of Warcraft, and _it’s a collectable, put it down_.”

   Jace did so.

   “What about this one?” he asked two minutes later.

   “That’s a sonic screwdriver,” Simon said after checking the toy in Jace’s hands. “You can play with that one, I have five of them.”

   Jace amused himself pressing the screwdriver’s buttons, making it beep and light up while Simon packed. His notebook of lyrics and song ideas; the iPad Luke had bought him for his 17th birthday last month, already loaded up with books and movies; his old and battered mp3 player; and chargers for all of the above.

   He didn’t notice Jace moving over to the bookcase until the Shadowhunter suddenly asked “And what are _these_?” in a delightfully scandalised tone.

   Simon looked up sharply. “Oh my God, put those _down_ ,” he ordered, abandoning his rucksack to try and snatch the glossy manga from Jace’s hands. “ _Jace_.”

   The blond was grinning, deftly keeping the book out of Simon’s reach despite his smaller height. “ _Well_ ,” he drawled, flicking through the pages, “ _Simon_. I had no idea you were such a naughty boy. Does your mother know you read these?”

   Simon flushed. “I – that is none of your business,” he said, flustered. “Give it _back_.”

   Laughing, Jace tossed the book at him, and snatched another while Simon was occupied scrambling for the first. “Oh dear, that does _not_ look comfortable,” Jace smirked. He jumped lightly out of the way as Simon lunged at him and continued turning pages.

   “I will murder you,” Simon threatened, bright red and torn between laughing and being horrified. “I swear to God, I will kill you dead.”

   “Oh, please try,” Jace purred. “I’ll sell tickets and go to Hawaii with the proceeds.” He turned the page, and Simon knew just which scene he’d found by the gut-punched expression he made.

   Simon folded his arms across his chest and refused to be embarrassed. “I warned you,” he said, lifting his chin.

   Jace turned and blinked at him, once, like a cat, before glancing back at the page. Simon watched his face turn blank, but the blond didn’t look away or slam the book shut the way Simon had expected him to.

   “Would you like to borrow it?” Simon asked, unable not to grin. “I have more.”

   “Thanks, but I think I’m good,” Jace drawled. He closed the book with a strangely deliberate gesture, and tossed it on the bed. He was frowning at nothing.

   Simon raised his eyebrows. “Is this going to be a problem?”

   “No,” Jace answered after a pause. Simon wondered if that were true. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought the look in Jace’s eyes was a little sad.

   “All right,” he said briskly, as though it were nothing. “Then hand me that, because I’m bringing it.”

   Jace raised an eyebrow. “You mean – ?” He glanced at the book, lying innocently on the bed.

   Simon stretched his hand out and flexed his fingers impatiently. “Yes. Come on, hand it over.”

   Bemused, Jace picked it up and handed it to Simon, who tucked it away into his bag. “Thanks,” he said, and deliberately walked over to the bookshelf to pick out a few more.

   “I wouldn’t let the others know,” Jace said after a while. He was quiet, and Simon didn’t turn to look at him until the blond added “The Clave doesn’t approve.”

   Simon felt his eyebrows shoot even higher. “You’re joking,” he said flatly.

   “Nope.” Jace sat down on the bed. “It’s not quite exile-worthy, but...” He waved his hand expressively.

   “But,” Simon echoed wryly. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not planning on becoming a Shadowhunter, then, isn’t it?” He came back to his rucksack, shoved the books in, and zipped the whole thing closed.

   “You’re not?” Jace asked, clearly surprised. “Why?”

   Simon stared at him. “Because I have my own life,” he said, amazed that Jace had thought – even for a second – that Simon would want to join in on the demon killing. “And I have no intentions of giving it up. Now come on. Dorothea’s going to think we drowned in the sink or something.”

   Simon automatically locked the door behind them – if nothing else, _his_ stuff was still safe and sound – and then, because he was a masochist, couldn’t resist asking “Why exactly doesn’t the Clave approve?”

   “Because Shadowhunters are a dying breed,” Jace said promptly. “Less are born every year, and more die than in the year before. There aren’t enough of us, and – those kinds of relationships don’t produce children.”

   Simon wondered what Jace had been going to say, wondered what had weighted that slight pause. “So allow Shadowhunter-mundane marriages, for God’s sake. That’ll get the numbers right up. _And_ prevent inbreeding.” He walked carefully around the Forsaken corpse. “Or, you know, stop using knives to kill demons. What’s wrong with arrows? Or bullets? Distance-killing equals safer Shadowhunters!”

   “Runes render gunpowder inactive,” Jace explained as they went down the stairs. “It’s the runes in the blades that stop the demons healing from the wounds we inflict, so we can’t go without them.” He paused. “But arrows are a good idea,” he said thoughtfully.

   Simon snorted. “Glad to be of assistance, I’m sure.” The foyer was still dark, but he found his way to Dorothea’s door easily enough. He knocked.

   “So what are you?” Jace asked curiously, and Simon felt his stomach knot.

   “I thought we went over this,” he said lightly. “A Shadowhunter. Apparently. By blood, at least.”

   Jace rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

   Simon raised his eyebrows. “I really don’t,” he said wryly, although he did. He knew exactly what Jace was asking, but the little shiver of anger down his spine made him want to force Jace to speak frankly. _I’m not ashamed of myself. I’m not embarrassed. If you are then that’s your problem._

   “Do you like – your books had both in them,” Jace said quickly.

   Simon bit the inside of his cheek. “I like both,” he said mildly. “We mundies call that bisexual.” He shrugged. “Right now I’m in love with a girl, but if things were right I could fall for a guy. It’s really not a big deal.”

   Dorothea opened her door, and Simon let it go in favour of more important concerns.

*

   From what Simon could tell, Madame Dorothea’s apartment was identical in layout to his and Jocelyn’s. But that was the only way in which they were similar; where Jocelyn had filled their apartment with good-quality second-hand furniture and the results of her art projects, Dorothea’s was a warm clutter of the esoteric and the occult. Posters featuring the zodiac and palmistry grappled for space with stacks of yellow-paged books with such intriguing titles as _The Secrets of Solomon_ and _Journey Through Tarot_.

   It went without saying that Simon could hardly breathe for all the incense.

   “Can you really tell people’s fortunes?” Simon asked curiously, peering at a chart full of Chinese symbols.

   “My mother had great talent,” Dorothea said, which Simon noted skirted the question. “She could see a man’s future in his hand or the leaves at the bottom of his teacup.” She glanced from Simon to Jace. “Speaking of tea, young man, would you like some?”

   Simon threw his head back and laughed.

   “What?” Jace asked, flustered.

   “Tea,” Dorothea said crisply. “I find it both settles the stomach and focuses the mind. Wonderful drink, tea.”

   “I would love some tea,” Simon said with a grin. His eyes flashed to his blond companion. “What about you, Jace?” he asked innocently.

   Jace glared at him, then drew himself up and nodded imperiously. “As long as it isn’t Earl Grey. I hate bergamot.”

   Madame Dorothea cackled and vanished through one of the bead curtains. Simon held on just long enough to hope she was out of earshot, then cracked up.

   Jace frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “You are a child,” he decided.

   Simon couldn’t get enough breath to answer. He was still laughing when Dorothea returned to gesture them through into her parlour.

   “Is he always like this?” she asked Jace, peering sidelong at Simon.

   “Always,” Jace said with a sigh. “It’s very trying.”

   Simon subsided into giggles, managing to thank the seeress for his tea. He pounced on the sandwiches with gusto, realising at the sight of them that he hadn’t eaten anything since the chocolate éclair with Clary three – nearly four – days ago now. “These are delicious,” he said enthusiastically. The cucumber had just the right amount of mayonnaise and pepper, and he piled them onto his plate shamelessly.

   Dorothea smiled. “I do so like a boy with manners.”

   Jace pointedly ignored her, sipping his tea, and Simon looked around the room. Despite the faint light, he could make out the swarm of stuffed birds and bats hanging from the ceiling in mid-flight, and the thick layers of Persian carpets beneath their feet. As well as an elegant blue teapot and the sandwiches, the table bore a stack of tarot cards tied up with a golden ribbon, and a crystal ball on a gold stand that Simon would have loved to take a look at.

   “You said your mother taught you to read fortunes,” Simon said when he thought the silence had stretched on too long. “Was she a Shadowhunter?”

   Jace choked on his tea, and Dorothea laughed. “No,” she said, a glint of amusement in her eyes. “She was a witch.”

   “That’s impossible,” Jace said flatly.

   “How come?” Simon asked. He wasn’t sure he believed Jace. The Shadowhunter seemed to think a lot of things were impossible that actually weren’t.

   “Because witches – and warlocks – are half-human, half demon. They’re crossbreeds. And because they’re crossbreeds, they can’t have children. They’re sterile.”

   Simon’s mind immediately jumped to mules, but he thought it would be rude to make the comparison in front of Dorothea.

   “All Downworlders are part demon,” Jace added. “But only warlocks are the children of demon parents. It’s why their powers are the strongest.”

   Simon frowned, thinking back. “So vampires and werewolves are part demon too? What about faeries?”

   “Vampires and werewolves are the result of diseases brought by demons from their own dimensions. Most demonic diseases are deadly to humans, but those two worked strange changes on the infected without actually killing them. And faeries – ”

   “Faeries are fallen angels,” said Dorothea, “cast down out of heaven for their pride.”

   “I know that story,” Simon said slowly. “They were too bad for Heaven, but not enough for Hell. So they got stuck on Earth.”

   “It’s one legend,” Jace allowed. “It’s also said that they’re the offspring of demons and angels, which always seemed more likely to me. Good and evil, mixed together. Faeries are as beautiful as angels are supposed to be, but they have a lot of cruelty in them. And you’ll notice most of them avoid midday sunlight – ”

   “For the devil has no power,” said Dorothea softly, as if reciting an old proverb, “except in the dark.”

   Simon glanced between Jace and the seeress. “Okay...” he said slowly, unsure what to say.

   “Enough about faeries.” Dorothea snapped out of her reverie. “It’s true and not true that warlocks can’t have children. There is a network in place, spells and watchers that alert the High Warlock of each territory whenever a new warlock is born. Someone is sent to examine the child, and most of the time the human mother is happy to give up her half-demon baby to someone who knows what to do with it. The child is taken away and raised by another warlock – among magic and safe from human hatred.” She sipped her tea. “My mother adopted me thusly.”

   Well, that explained how she had known his room was clear, Simon thought. And, with a spark of hope: maybe it was how she knew Jocelyn was still alive.

   “You really are a witch?” Jace sounded stunned. “But you can’t be.”

   Dorothea raised her eyebrows. “I can show you my demon mark, if you like.”

   “Demon mark?” Simon asked, intrigued.

   “It’s the sign of Infernal parentage,” Jace said absently. “Every warlock has one: a tail, wings, cloven hooves... They’re usually hard to hide.”

   Dorothea lifted her teacup in acknowledgement. “And are the reason so many of us are killed at birth. That was why the network was originally established, centuries ago.”

   “If it’s not rude – ” Simon hesitated, because maybe it _was_ rude – but she had offered a minute ago, so he swallowed and continued: “If it’s not rude, could I see your mark, please?”

   The witch frowned at him thoughtfully, but she didn’t seem offended. “I suppose there’s no reason to hide it from you anymore.” Holding her cup with one hand, she reached up with the other and tugged a lock of hair from beneath her turban.

   Simon gasped. He couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop staring. Her hair – her hair was spun glass. _Literally_ ; not white, not silver, but completely clear, as transparent as crystal. And like crystal, when Dorothea tilted her hand a little, little rainbows and glints of light ran through it. “It’s beautiful,” he said without thinking. He hadn’t expected that, after the Ravener and the Forsaken; hadn’t imagined that something demonic could be beautiful.

   _But no wonder she wears a turban!_

   Dorothea smiled. “Thank you,” she said warmly, like a grandmother to a toddler, and tucked the curl of hair away again.

   “But – ” Jace looked as though he’d been punched. “I asked about you. After Simon came to the Institute. I sent out messages through the Downworld. Everyone said you were a fake.”

   Dorothea smiled. Unlike the one she had given Simon, it was not wholly a nice smile. “The Downworld protects its own, Shadowhunter. Why would it give up one of its own to one of _you?”_

   “What if the parents don’t want to give up their baby?” Simon asked hurriedly, before the tension could grow any worse.

   _One of_ you. As though it were the Shadowhunters who were the monsters.

   Dorothea shrugged. “Then the High Warlock – or someone he assigns to the case – will check on the child regularly. Teach them magic, and how to hide their mark. Make sure they are not being abused. And prepare them for immortality.”

   Simon stared. “Immortality?” he asked weakly.

   “Warlocks are like vampires and faeries that way,” Jace said. He was staring hard at Dorothea, a slight frown between his eyebrows. “Unless they are killed, they can’t die.”

   “It makes us excellent guardians,” Dorothea said.

   Simon thought of asking what it was that she guarded, but it didn’t seem any of his business – and he had the strong idea that poking his nose in where he wasn’t invited in the Shadow World was a good way to have it cut off.

   Jace had no such compunctions. “Guarding what?”

   “That,” Dorothea said, “would be telling.”

   Simon carefully put his empty teacup back on its saucer. He’d barely let go of the little handle before Madame Dorothea pounced on it, snatching it away and peering into it intently.

   “If you see the Grim, don’t tell me,” Simon said, sinking back into the pink armchair. “I don’t want to know.”

   Jace leaned forward as Dorothea turned the cup around and around in her fingers, scowling with frustration.

   “Oh God, it’s bad, isn’t it?” Simon asked.

   “It is neither bad nor good. It is _confusing_.” Dorothea put down the cup and looked to Jace. “Give me _your_ cup,” she ordered.

   Jace clutched his cup against his chest protectively. “But I’m not done with my – ”

   Dorothea plucked it out of his grasp before he could say another word and splashed the leftover tea back into the pot. She peered into it, ignoring Jace’s muttering. “I see violence in your future, a great deal of blood shed by you and others. You’ll fall in love with the wrong person. Also, you have an enemy.”

   “Only one? That’s good news.” But Jace looked pale as he settled back in his chair.

   Dorothea picked up Simon’s cup again.

   “There is nothing for me to read here,” she said finally, clearly annoyed. “The images are jumbled, meaningless.” She looked up at Simon. “Is there a block on your mind?” she demanded.

   “Probably,” Simon sighed. “At this rate, nothing would surprise me.” He sat bolt upright. “Not that I was tempting fate or anything! Please don’t smite me,” he said beseechingly to the ceiling.

   Shadowhunter and seeress exchanged a puzzled glance, then looked away sharply upon recognising their moment of commiseration.

   “I don’t actually know what that means,” Simon added. “A block, I mean.”

   “A spell that might conceal a memory, or might have blocked out your Sight.”

   Simon thought about it. “I’ve been seeing weird things lately,” he said slowly. “But...only lately. I guess it could have been wearing off for some reason?” _Could_ there have been a block in his mind? The thought was intensely disturbing. “But I don’t know how it would have gotten there.” A thought occurred to him. “If you’re a witch, could you check?”

   Dorothea looked unsatisfied. “No. My gifts are weak, and don’t lie in that direction anyway. We shall have to try something else.” Lowering the cup, she reached for the silk-wrapped tarot deck. Fanning the cards with an expert snap of her wrist, she offered them to Simon. “Slide your hand over these until you touch one that feels hot or cold, or seems to cling to your fingers. Then draw that one and show it to me.”

   Sceptical – although he had no reason to be, Simon reasoned; tarot cards seemed far more reasonable than demons and invisible monster-hunters – Simon ran his fingers over the cards.

   His hand stopped dead about a third of the way through the fan. It was nothing as dramatic as a jolt up his arm, and the card didn’t leap into his hand as if magnetised, but there was a definite tingle in his fingertips. Stunned, he pulled the card free and flipped it.

   “The Ace of Cups,” Dorothea said. She sounded confused. “The love card.”

   Simon stared at it. He had never seen it before, but he only needed a glance to know that his mother had made it – with real paint, too, so that the card was heavy in his palm. The picture showed a cup held by a hand in front of a rayed sun touched with gilt. The cup was gold, engraved with lots of little suns and decorated with rubies. “Is it a good card?” he asked. His voice came out hoarse.

   “Not necessarily,” Dorothea admitted. “The most terrible things people do, they do in the name of love. But it is a powerful card. What does it mean to you?”

   Simon thought of Clary, but the aura of the card didn’t seem to fit her. His mother’s painting was full of power, something hovering on the edge of terrible. It made him think of a line from the movie _The Prophecy_ ;

_‘Whenever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel. Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? ...Would you ever really want to see an angel?’_

   The first time he’d heard that, it had hit him, hard, that these creatures that were light and beautiful in popular culture were actually terrible. Not evil, not that, but...terrible. The picture of the cup felt the same.

   Clary wasn’t terrible. But what Dorothea had said about love... Simon wondered if what he was feeling was his own potential, the things he was prepared, deep down, to do to get his mom back safe.

   He put the card down gingerly. “My mom painted it,” he said quietly.

   Dorothea’s eyes flashed, and Simon knew she had not missed that he had dodged the question. “She painted the whole deck. A gift.”

   “How well did you know Simon’s mother?” Jace stood up, and his eyes were chillingly cold.

   Simon frowned at him. “Jace,” he said warningly.

   Dorothea waved Simon down. She met Jace’s gaze squarely. “Jocelyn knew what I was, and I knew what she was. We didn’t talk about it much. Sometimes she did favours for me – like painting this pack of cards – and in return I’d tell her the occasional piece of Downworld gossip. There was a name she asked me to keep an out for, and I did.”

   Simon couldn’t read the look on Jace’s face. “What name was that?”

   “Valentine.”

   Simon blinked. Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “But he’s – ” He shut his mouth sharply, unwilling to tempt fate.

   “And when you say you knew what Jocelyn was, what do you mean?” Jace asked before Simon could.

   “Jocelyn was what she was,” said Dorothea, which was _maddening_. “But in her past she’d been like you. A Shadowhunter. One of the Clave.”

   “My _mom_?” Simon burst out, unable to keep back his surprise. He’d begun to accept the fact that his father was a Shadowhunter, because it had seemed the obvious – the only – answer. But he’d thought that Jocelyn probably hadn’t known, and now – “Are you – I don’t mean to be rude, but are you _sure_?”

   Dorothea nodded. “It’s true. She chose to live in this house precisely because – ”

   “Because this is a Sanctuary,” Jace interrupted. “Isn’t it? Your mother – ” He was looking at Dorothea, not Simon, so Simon figured he meant Dorothea’s mother and not his, “was a Control. She made this space, hidden, protected – it’s a perfect spot for Downworlders on the run to hide out. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You hide criminals here.”

   “You _would_ call them that,” Dorothea said. She turned to Simon. “Have they told you the motto of their Covenant yet?”

   Simon shook his head and looked questioningly at Jace.

   “ _Sed lex dura lex_ ,” the Shadowhunter answered instantly. “ ‘The Law is hard, but it is the Law.’ ”

   “That’s...” Simon searched for an appropriate word. “That’s _horrible_.”

   Jace glanced at him, startled.

   “What?” Simon demanded. “It’s true. I’m seriously worried about any country where the motto is ‘the Law is hard’. Sounds totalitarian to me. _An unjust law is itself a species of violence,_ Ghandi said that, and ‘hard’ edges a little too close to ‘unjust’ for comfort.”

   “Sometimes the Law is too hard,” Dorothea agreed. She gave Jace a hard look. “I’ve been alive long enough to remember when the Clave used to murder warlock children, little Nephilim, just for being young and afraid and unable to hide. You swept in, and denounced them as demons, and the mundanes learned from your example. That was the start of the witch hunts in this country.”

   “The more I hear about these guys the less I like them,” Simon said to no one in particular.

   Jace, clearly unable to decide how to respond to the crazy mundie, settled for ignoring him. “So you’re a philanthropist?” he said to Dorothea, his lip curling. “I suppose you expect me to believe that Downworlders don’t pay you handsomely for the privilege of your Sanctuary?”

   Dorothea grinned, wide enough to show a flash of gold molars. “We can’t all get by on our looks like you.”

   “I should tell the Clave about you – ”

   “Hey!” Simon snapped. Both the others looked to him, but Simon had eyes only for Jace. “Back off, okay? Yes, the morality of the thing is slightly skewed if she makes them pay,” Dorothea looked unrepentant, “but I’ve seen and heard enough to know the Clave aren’t the good guys you seem to think they are. You didn’t want to tell them about me when Hodge was going to. Fine. But that makes me think I don’t want them to know about anybody else either.”

   Jace looked flabbergasted.

   Dorothea laughed. “I like this one,” she said.

   Jace’s expression hardened. He strode to one of the velvet wall hangings and tore it aside. “You want to tell me what this is?” he demanded.

   “It’s a door, Jace,” Simon said flatly. That much was self-evident; set in the wall between two bay windows, Simon couldn’t figure out where it must go, but it was clearly a door.

   “Shut up!” Jace snapped. “It’s a Portal. Isn’t it?”

   “It’s a five-dimensional door,” Dorothea agreed amicably, laying the tarot deck back on the table carefully. “Dimensions aren’t all straight lines, you know,” she told Simon confidingly. “There are dips and folds and nooks and crannies all tucked away. It’s a bit hard to explain when you’ve never studied dimensional theory, but, in essence, that door can take you anywhere in this dimension that you want to go. It’s – ”

   “ _So cool_ ,” Simon breathed.

   “An escape hatch,” Jace said coldly. “That’s why your mother wanted to live here, Simon, so she could always flee at a moment’s notice.”

   Simon frowned, reluctantly letting go of his awe at the Portal to come back to the real world. He landed with a bump. “But then why didn’t she run when the Ravener showed up?”

   “She wouldn’t leave without you,” Dorothea said softly.

   A chill shot down Simon’s spine. “And I left my phone at home,” he whispered hoarsely. “She couldn’t even call me.” Guilt, anchor-heavy and poison-bitter, swept through him like a tsunami, not just in his gut and throat but stretching to fill the inside of his fingertips and his hair as well, the normal spaces not enough to contain it.

   If Jocelyn was hurt – if she was dead – it was Simon’s fault.

   Before anyone could say something – although what they could have said to make this better, Simon had no idea – the room suddenly brightened, flooding with red light.

   Simon looked up, blinking; Jace whipped out one of his seraph blades. “What is that?” he said harshly.

   Dorothea rose from her chair. She looked afraid, which had Simon scrabbling for Simiel as well. “It is the alarm,” she said. “Some other Shadow Worlder has entered the property. My mother set the wards in case any of her rivals came to try and gain control of the Portal.”

   “But – ” Simon protested, seeing an instant flaw in that logic.

   Dorothea waved her hand dismissively. “I made exceptions for you and your mother long ago. But how did you think I knew when he,” she pointed at Jace, “came here the other day?”

   Simon opened his mouth – and closed it again. That hadn’t occurred to him.

   “It’s also how I know your mother was alive when they took her,” Dorothea added, just a touch more gently. “The wards registered no death in this building until your little game with the Forsaken.”

   Relief was a fist closing around Simon’s throat – and it had claws. _Was alive when they took her..._

Was she still?

   He had no choice but to believe that she was.

   “Are any of your Downworlders set to arrive today?” Jace asked.

   “No.”

   Instead of looking worried, Jace grinned. “Good.” He spun the glittering knife between his fingers. “I’ve been feeling _antsy_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year's everybody! :D This chapter is dedicated to mumismatist on fanfiction.net, whose reviews always brighten my day. 
> 
> Also, I am currently hard at work on chapter 9. I intend to always stay a good few chapters ahead of what I'm posting, so there's always something for you guys. And Cassie has convinced me to give you guys a DVD Extra kind of thing between chapters 8 and 9, so there's actually a little something extra to look forward to~
> 
> Hope you enjoy this one!

   Without releasing his seraph blade, Jace pulled out a slim silvery wand, the one that Simon dimly remembered from after the fight with the Ravener. It looked like ice, made, Simon guessed, out of the same crystal as the Shadowhunter knives.

   “Give me your arm,” Jace ordered.

   Instead of handing it over, Simon pulled it in against his chest. “What are you going to do?” he asked suspiciously. Adrenalin was beginning to push the guilt away; who was coming, and how soon would it take them to come to Dorothea’s door? Would there be more fighting? All urgent questions, but he glanced at Jace’s Marks and thought of the dead Forsaken upstairs – which reminded him; he wasn’t at all sure he could pull off that trick again. Killing it had very much been beginner’s luck.

   “Make you unseen. _Give me your arm_.” _We don’t have time for this,_ his voice said, and Simon reluctantly accepted that it was true. He extended his arm gingerly.

   Tucking his seraph blade away briefly, Jace grasped Simon’s wrist tightly. “This is going to hurt,” he warned. “The stele will burn. Don’t flinch.”  

   Simon swallowed hard as the little wand – the stele – touched his forearm. For a moment nothing happened, as though Jace were hesitating – and then the blond’s expression firmed and –

   “OUCH!”

   “Quiet!” Jace hissed, but Simon was too busy gritting his teeth to really listen.

   “I have never seen runes drawn before,” Dorothea commented. She sounded unfairly interested, considering that Jace was literally _carving_ the rune into Simon’s flesh. It took everything he had to hold his arm still instead of wrenching it away from the viciously burning _pain_ of Jace’s precious little stele.

   “ ‘Don’t flinch’? Really?” he said through his teeth.

   “Don’t be a baby,” Jace said dismissively. “Shadowhunter children get their first runes at ten, you have nothing to complain about. There.” He put his sword between his teeth and rolled up his own sleeve. Without so much as wincing, he deftly drew the same Mark on his own arm; equally black and swirly and vaguely tribal.

   Threads of pain wound through Simon’s arm like hot wires; tentatively he curled his fingers into a fist. Up close, the black of the rune didn’t look like a tattoo; it looked burned, charred into his flesh instead of inked, except smooth. “What does it do?”

   “I told you: makes you unseen and unheard. To some things, anyway.” Jace put his stele away. “Thank you for the tea, warlock.”

   Dorothea crossed her arms across her chest. “You,” she said, “I don’t want coming back.” But she smiled at Simon. “Be careful,” she advised.

   “I will,” he assured her – hurriedly, because Jace, impatient, was already leaving. “Thank you for your help!”

   Jace beckoned, and Simon followed, queasy with a distinctly unpleasant cocktail of fear and nerves. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be excited about his own invisibility – if he was invisible. So far, he only had Jace’s word for it.

   The beaded curtain rattled as Simon passed through it. Jace was already at the front door; he opened it slowly, peering through the crack.

   “Do you see anyone?” Simon whispered, coming to stand beside him.

   Jace shook his head, but didn’t abandon his caution. He pushed the door open just enough for them to slip out – one at a time, walking sideways – and then closed it behind them, as quietly as he could. He jerked his chin at the stairs, and Simon nodded, holding on tight to Simiel.

   The two of them sprinted into the shadow of the staircase, Simon wincing at every slap of his shoes on the ground. Jace’s, at least, didn’t make a whisper, and Simon decided that if this was going to be his life now he was at least grabbing some shoes that wouldn’t alert the bad guys to his presence every time.

   They crouched low once they were hidden, and Jace put his finger to his lips.

   After a moment Simon heard it too: a pair of voices, upstairs on the landing.

   “Could he have killed it?”

   “What, you think that wound was an accident?”

   “It could have been someone else.”

   Jace raised his stele and began moving it, carefully drawing a sort of square in the air, angled up through the staircase. As Simon watched, the space turned clear, like a window, and Simon clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from making a sound.

   They could see the landing now, complete with Forsaken corpse. Two men were standing with their back to the little window, arguing over the body. They were both in long red robes, with the hoods pushed back, but they would have to turn around for the boys to see their faces. One was thin and the other was built, thick rather than fat with short red hair; that was all Simon could make out.

   _What are they?_ Simon mouthed. Jace shrugged, his eyes narrowed.

   “Well, that answers that question at least,” the bald man drawled. “The ward was most certainly triggered, else this,” he poked the corpse with his boot, “would still be locked up nice and tight.”

   Simon stiffened, but Jace didn’t seem in the mood to say _I told you so_. His room _had_ been a trap after all.

   “Yes, and the body’s fresh. Let’s check inside – either he’s still here or the wards will give us a few more details of what happened.”

   “After you, Pangborn.”

   The two of them disappeared into Simon’s apartment, opening the door as if the lock simply didn’t exist.

   Simon made to stand up, but Jace grabbed him and pulled him back down. “What are you doing?” the Shadowhunter hissed.

   “Getting out of here!” Simon hissed back. “Shouldn’t we go before they come out again?”

   “Weren’t you listening? They left the Forsaken here! Which means they’re almost certainly involved with whoever took your mother. Now come on.”

   Without waiting for Simon’s protest, Jace slashed his stele through the window – making it disappear – leapt, twisted, and vaulted up over the stair rail.

   “I can’t do that!” Simon called softly, annoyed at the blond’s showing off. Muttering, he went the long way around and took the stairs two at a time until he caught up.

   Jace darted across the landing, but not, as Simon had expected, into the apartment. Instead he knelt down by one wall and drew another one of those windows, so they could see into the flat without risking running into the two men.

   Smart, Simon had to admit.

   “He’s definitely been here,” the red head was saying. They were in Simon’s room – no surprise there. “The wardrobe’s still open.”

   He turned towards his audience, and Jace went rigid, as still and tense as if he’d been turned to stone.

   Simon frowned and mouthed _what?_ but the blond didn’t reply.

   “What did he take?” the bald man asked. “Valentine thinks there’s a good chance Jocelyn hid the Cup in something of the boy’s. He would have come back for it.”

   The bottom dropped out from Simon’s stomach. _Mom_. But Valentine was supposed to be dead.

   _And demons aren’t supposed to be real,_ he thought wildly.

   The red head was frowning. “Just some clothes, books. None of the strange stuff.” His gesture encompassed all of Simon’s gathered memorabilia, the figurines and toys and posters, and Simon felt indignant. _It’s not STUFF!_

   “Hm.” The other red-robe circled Simon’s room. He was holding something in his hand, something that might have been another Sensor or something like it. “Wait. He was here not half an hour ago.”

   The wrestler’s head snapped up. “He could still be close by.”

   “Now can we run?” Simon whispered.

   “Now,” Jace agreed.

   They bolted, past the Forsaken and down the stairs. Simon’s heart was pounding, waiting for the voices, the ‘Hey you!’ behind them, the bullet in the back –

   He nearly tripped on the last step but Jace caught him and hauled him upright.

   “It’s him!”

   _Crap!_ Simon risked a glance over his shoulder; Jace snarled and spun, raising his blade.

   “No no no no,” Simon babbled, grabbing his arm, “no more fighting today, okay, let’s just _go_ – ”

   The two men were at the top of the stairs, and Jace and Simon were out in the open; the light was bad but not bad enough to hide them. He saw the flash of seraph blades snapping out and felt his heart sink. Not even warlocks or demons, but Shadowhunters.

   That was all kinds of bad.

   “Jace!” he shouted, and Jace snapped out of it, looked at Simon as if he’d never seen him before. The two of them ran, half-skidding across the marble foyer and shoving the front door open with a bang.

   “Shut it!” Jace snapped, and Simon did, slamming it closed behind them.

   “Come on,” he gasped, “I have an idea,” and he sprinted for the parking lot. The other thing he was going to do, besides getting squeaky-floor proof shoes, Simon decided as he fumbled for his car keys, was get fit, because this was a hell of a lot of exercise in one day for a proud nerd.

   “Where are we going?!”

   “Just come on!”

   For a moment he panicked that the people who had cleared the apartment had also taken the van, but maybe they’d only seen that there was nothing registered to one Simon Fray because Eric’s van was still there. “Thank God,” Simon breathed, half crashing into it as he shoved the keys in the lock. “What are you waiting for? Get in get in get in!”

   Jace threw himself inside and Simon did the same, fingers clumsy on the seat belt.

  “Simon!” Jace snapped. The two red-robes had reached the parking lot.

   “I’d like to see you do better!” Simon pushed the keys in and turned them; the engine caught. “OhthankyouGodlet’s _go!”_

   He put his foot flat on the pedal, and the van wasn’t the most responsive of titans but it answered to that, squealing out of its parking space like a bat out of Hell.

   “Out of the way!” Simon yelled, almost high on the adrenalin as he drove straight for the two men. “I will squash you like pancakes, you fuckers, PANCAKES – ”

   “ARE YOU INSANE?” Jace shouted, but Simon laughed hysterically and beeped the horn and didn’t turn, didn’t turn and didn’t turn until the wide eyes realised he was serious.

   “I think I clipped one!” Simon said, not so much coloured with hysteria as drowning in it. “Do I get points, I should get so many points for that – it’s just like playing Gran Turismo! Except you don’t run people over in that – ”

   “You didn’t run them over,” Jace said carefully. “But you should have.”

   “Next time I’ll do better,” Simon promised. “Hey, if we duel again, can I use a car instead of Simiel?”

   “No,” Jace said flatly, and Simon laughed and laughed.  

*

   “So what exactly are we doing now?” Simon asked a little later. Night was falling, but even in the dark Simon thought he would have noticed anyone following them. However evil Shadowhunters got around, it apparently wasn’t by car. (So what did they use? It wouldn’t be easy to ride broomsticks in those robes...) “Should I drive back to the Institute? If so, you’re going to have to give me directions.”

   Jace ignored him. He hadn’t made a sound since Simon’s hysteria-edged laughter, lost deep in his own thoughts, and Simon was beginning to worry about him.

   “We got away,” he reminded Jace for the eighth time. “Seriously, I think we can count this one as a win. You can stop brooding now.”

   Jace did not stop brooding. Simon rolled his eyes to heaven. “Fine. You know what, I’m starving. So I’m going to pull over, and we’re going to grab something to eat, and then you’re going to play SatNav and direct us back to the Institute, okay? Okay then.”

   A few minutes later, Jace muttered “How can you possibly be hungry? You had all those sandwiches.”

   Simon hid his grin. “I,” he said imperiously, “am a growing boy. Now shut up and let me find a good cafe. Or do you want fast food?”

   Fast food was deemed acceptable, and Simon got to work trying to find somewhere suitably greasy. Jace seemed happy to lapse back into silence, which was not on: at the next red light, Simon stole a glance at the passenger seat and poked him. “Hey. How did you know the Portal was there?”

   Jace swatted at Simon’s hand absently. “I guessed. Why else would an ex-Shadowhunter agree to live next door to a warlock?”

   Simon considered that. _Because they were friends?_ “And what would you have done,” he asked, instead of trying to beat some open-mindedness into Jace’s thick skull, “if you’d swept back the curtain, all dramatic, and found nothing but a blank wall?”

   The corners of Jace’s lips turned up. “Been embarrassed. But I was pretty sure.” His smile faded, sliding away like water as he glanced over at Simon. “She’s not the friendly neighbour who bakes you cookies, Simon,” which was just ridiculous, because Dorothea had never baked cookies and if she had, they would probably have had pot in them – that was probably why she used all the incense, and, holy Han Solo, he was never going to get the idea of a stoned witch mixing up the ‘tall, dark and handsome’ line and instead intoning _‘you will meet a grumpy blond midget’_ out of his head, _ever_ – “She didn’t go to help your mother, even when she knew there was danger. She didn’t come to help _us_.”

   The giggles that had been threatening to erupt died. “Yeah,” Simon admitted. “But maybe she was scared. She’s not exactly Granny Weatherwax, is she?”

   “Who?”

   Simon ignored this blasphemy, because if he didn’t he would have to do something drastic, and he was driving. “She said her magic wasn’t very powerful. And not everyone is crazy brave – and when I say crazy, I mean _bat-shit insane_ – like you Shadowhunters. Not everyone can fight. It doesn’t make them evil. Or worthless.”

   They drove in silence for a few minutes. “I’m sorry,” Jace said suddenly, “I’m still trying to work out what your grandmother has to do with wax,” and Simon took deep breaths and counted to four hundred twice.

   They ended up at McDonald’s, because Simon declared that he had earned himself a McFlurry or two for not killing Jace. _(Terry Pratchet!_ His inner bookworm wailed. _TERRY PRATCHET!!!)_ Jace didn’t seem to know what to make of the ice-cream with its Oreo fragments and crumbs. He poked it dubiously with his plastic spoon.

   “It’s not going to eat you, _you’re_ supposed to eat _it_ ,” Simon said around a mouthful of ice-cream. They’d already shoved the greasy papers from their burgers – Simon’s vegetarian and Jace’s double cheese – into a rubbish bag, and all but a few of the chips had been demolished. But there was always room for ice-cream. “My God, what is wrong with you? Have you seriously never had ice-cream before?”

   “Of course I have!” Jace protested. “But Isabelle’s mother makes it by hand. This came out of a machine.” He poked it again, with an amount of suspicion that had Simon wondering if all Shadowhunters were so paranoid.

   “Jesus on a T-Rex, look, here.” Simon brought up a spoonful of his own McFlurry and held it out to Jace. “See, I’ve been eating it, you know this one isn’t poisoned. Just try it.”

   Jace hesitated. “It’s been in your mouth,” he pointed out, meaning the spoon.

   “What are you, eight, who’s afraid of cooties at our age? Besides, I’m a boy.” Simon wiggled the spoon. “No icky girl cooties here.”

   With a huff of laughter, Jace leaned forward and closed his mouth around the spoon. His face went surprised, and Simon grinned. “See?”

   “Taste,” Jace corrected, and Simon snorted. But he felt he’d proven his point; Jace dug into his own ice-cream with gusto, and Simon polished off the last of his with distinct smugness.

*

   The outside of the Institute looked like a grand cathedral when Simon pulled up in front of it, all leaded windows and spires.

   “Let me guess: hallowed ground, right?” Simon asked as they climbed out of the van. Jace had the rubbish bag, and he nodded.

   “It helps keep the Institute safe.”

   Jace opened the door with a key Simon hadn’t noticed before. Inside they took the stairs at something close to a crawl; the day was starting to catch up with Simon, and Jace matched his pace without comment.

   “Any chance of a coffee?” Simon said imploringly. “I think I’d kill for a cup right about now.”

   “I’m sure we can find some.”

   At the top of the stairs they found the elevator – Simon was so confused with regards the logistics of this place – and the two boys rode up in silence. Jace had retreated into his own head again, and Simon was busy thinking longingly of the cups of coffee his mom made on Saturday mornings; big mugs, the coffee half milk and spiced with just a tiny bit of cinnamon, just enough to be able to taste it. And sometimes Luke would show up for a cup of his own, bribing his way in with bags of sweet rolls from the Golden Carriage Bakery in Chinatown.

   Remembering his last conversation with Luke, Simon shoved the memories of the man away.

   When the elevator stopped, they were in the entryway that Simon remembered. Jace tossed his jacket over the back of a chair and whistled, ignoring the strange look Simon gave him.

   Moments later Church materialised in a doorway, slinky and soft. His eyes gleamed like topaz. “Church,” Jace said, kneeling down to stroke the cat’s head. “Where’s Alec, Church? Where’s Hodge?”

   Church meowed, then shook himself and trotted off down the corridor. He glanced over his shoulder, meowed again, and continued on. Simon would have been significantly more surprised if the cat hadn’t already led him to the weapons room this morning. Clearly Church was the equivalent of Hen Wen, except a cat and not a pig.

   Simon debated asking if Church could see the future, but that made him think of Dorothea, and before he knew it they were standing at the base of a tightly spiralled metal staircase that disappeared into the high ceiling. “So he’s in the greenhouse,” Jace said. “No surprise there.”

   “There’s a greenhouse here?” Simon asked.

   “Hodge likes it up there.” Jace began climbing, and Simon hurried after him. Church had vanished, so maybe he was magical after all. “He grows medicinal plants, things we can use. Most of them only grow in Idris. I think it reminds him of home.”

   Simon’s shoes made noise on the metal stairs and Jace’s didn’t, reminding Simon of his resolution. “Is it your shoes or your training that makes you so quiet?” he grumbled.

   Jace smirked at him. “Both.”

   Simon huffed. “Well, I want a pair,” he said stubbornly.

   “You can’t have a pair of me, I’m one of a kind,” Jace tossed blithely over his shoulder. “But I’m sure we can find you a pair of boots.”

   They had reached the top of the staircase. Jace shouldered open a set of double doors engraved with foliage.

   It was a little like opening the door to Dorothea’s apartment, in that the smell hit Simon first. But instead of incense it was the warm, thick scent Simon remembered from a visit to the botanical gardens with St. Xavier’s, instantly recognisable as growing things even if you couldn’t put the smell of it into words.

   The space they entered was so much larger than anything Simon had been expecting. “You know, when you said ‘greenhouse’, I was thinking of those small glass things people have in their gardens,” Simon said, looking everywhere. “Not a _football field_.” The enormous space was filled with trees and bushes, not little ferny things in pots – and when he focussed, he realised that not a single one was familiar. The fruits were strange colours and oddly shaped, and the shapes of the leaves were subtly _wrong_ to his eyes, as if they would change the moment he looked away.

   “It’s a little bit of home,” Jace said, so quietly Simon almost missed it, “to me.” He pushed aside a curtain of hanging fronds, and Simon followed, ducking under the plants in an attempt to avoid getting leaves in his hair.

   They emerged into a cleared space that was such a blaze of colour Simon had to close his eyes for a second, half-blinded. With no pattern, the flowering blossoms were chaotic, but when his eyes settled he decided he liked the effect; messy and fun and natural. A stone bench rested beneath a tree with willow-like branches and silvery leaves, and Simon saw glimmers of fish in a still pool. Hodge sat on the bench as if on a throne, but like a very tired king. Hugo was on his shoulder.

   Both of them turned as Simon and Jace entered.

   “You look like you’re waiting for something,” Jace observed. He broke off a sprig of greenery and twirled it between his fingers. For someone who was so self-contained, Simon thought, the blond had an awful lot of nervous habits. He was nearly always playing with something.

   “I was lost in thought.” Hodge stood up from the bench, stretching out his arm for Hugo. His smile faded as he got a better look at the two boys. “What happened? You look as if – ”

   “We were attacked,” Jace said shortly. “Forsaken.”

   “Forsaken warriors? Here?” Hodge looked horrified, which, considering the one and only Forsaken Simon had seen, he figured was justified.

   “Warrior,” said Jace. “We only saw one.”

   “But we were told there were more,” Simon added, remembering Dorothea’s warning.

   Hodge held up a hand. “This might be easier if you took things in order.”

   “Right.” Jace gave Simon a sharp look, warning him not to interrupt, and proceeded to detail the afternoon’s events.

   “You’re sure that was the name?” Hodge asked sharply. “Pangborn?”

   Jace nodded. “And that’s not all.” He didn’t look at Simon. “I recognised them. Those men killed my father.”

   Simon’s head snapped around. Hodge’s eyes were wide and shocked, but Jace’s expression was a mask.

   “You didn’t say,” Simon whispered.

   Jace shrugged as though it were nothing, but Simon saw the hardness in his eyes. His strange reactions to the two men made perfect sense now – turning back to fight instead of running away, the way he’d stiffened at the sight of them.

   Simon closed his eyes. And he’d teased Jace into trying McDonald’s ice-cream. It seemed horribly irreverent, enough to make him wince at the memory.

   “Pangborn,” Hodge murmured. “It is as I feared. The Circle is rising again.” He shook his head as if trying to clear cobwebs from his brain, and his voice, when he spoke, was tired, resigned. “I think it’s time I showed you something.”

*

   The library was full of shadows cast by the gas lamps. Simon was sitting on the red sofa, clutching his rucksack like a teddy bear; Jace leaned against the sofa arm, inches away from Simon’s elbow. “If you need help looking,” the blond began, clearly restless.

   “Not at all.” Hodge emerged from behind the desk. “I’ve found it.”

   Simon leaned forward. Hodge was carrying a large book bound in leather, and he paged through it almost anxiously, blinking rapidly behind his glasses. “Where...were...ah, here it is!”

   He cleared his throat and recited: “I hereby render unconditional obedience to the Circle and its principles...I will be ready to risk my life at any time for the Circle, in order to preserve the purity of the bloodlines of Idris, and for the mortal world with whose safety we are charged.’ ”

   “What the hell is _that_?” Simon made a face.

   “It was the loyalty oath of the Circle of Raziel, twenty years ago,” said Hodge. He sounded exhausted.

   “Were they the Shadowhunter equivalent of Nazis, by any chance?” Simon asked.

   Hodge put the book down. “They were a group,” he said slowly, “of Shadowhunters, led by Valentine, dedicated to wiping out all Downworlders and returning the world to a ‘purer’ state. Their plan was to wait for the Downworlders to arrive in Idris to sign the Accords. They must be signed again every seventeen years, to keep their magic potent,” he added, Simon supposed for his benefit. “Then, they planned to slaughter them all, unarmed and defenceless. This terrible act, they thought, would spark off a war between humans and Downworlders – one they intended to win.”

   “That,” Simon said flatly, “was fuc – _really_ dumb.” He raised his eyebrows at the surprise on Hodge’s face. “What? Jace told me there aren’t many of you. I’ve already worked out that Shadowhunters must be crazily inbred, or getting there, and you use incredibly stupid tactics fighting demons. There’s no way Idris could go up against the whole Downworld and win.”

   “They...did not realise that,” Hodge said slowly. He still looked a little stunned.

   “You’re talking about the Uprising,” Jace realised, clearly recognising in Hodge’s story one he was already aware of. Simon imagined him, Alec and Isabelle hearing about this in Idris History 101. “I didn’t know Valentine and his followers had a name.”

   “The name isn’t often spoken these days,” said Hodge. “Their existence remains an embarrassment to the Clave. Most documents pertaining to them have been destroyed.”

   Simon pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “I really, _really_ don’t like these guys,” he told his rucksack. You couldn’t erase history by...erasing it. You had to learn from it, meet it head on the way German schools taught World War 2 and the Holocaust; in detail, with shame and determination that nothing like it would ever be allowed to happen again.

   “Then why do you have a copy of the oath?” Jace asked, used, by now, to ignoring Simon’s strange declarations.

   Simon raised his head at Hodge’s hesitation. A chill settled in his bones.

   “Because,” the old man said finally, “I helped write it.”

   Simon groaned. “Of course you did.”

 _“You were in the Circle?!”_ Jace demanded, far more shocked. But then he, unlike Simon, was unaware that life, like stories, often had patterns you could half-predict if you paid close enough attention.

   “I was,” Hodge said quietly. “Many of us were.” He looked straight ahead, avoiding both of them. “Pangborn. Blackwell. The Lightwoods. Michael Wayland; your father, Jace.”

   Jace raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

   Hodge hesitated. “Simon’s mother as well,” he said reluctantly.

   _That_ Simon had not seen coming; he flinched as if Hodge had hit him. _“What?!”_

   “I said – ”

   “I know what you said!” Simon snapped. “But I’m having a problem with you claiming my mom belonged to some kind of God damn Nazi group. _Also_ ,” he added as something else occurred to him, “if you were in this Circle, and so was my mom, _then you knew from the minute I got here who she was._ ” He glared. “All that bull about whether my mom or my dad was a Shadowhunter – wanting to call in the Clave – you knew all along!”

   Jace’s eyes went wide, and then hard. “Is that true?” he asked softly. Dangerously. The light of the lamps caught and fractured on crystal as one of his seraph blades dropped into his hand. “Why didn’t you say so before, Hodge?”

   Hodge stared at Jace’s sword, clearly taken aback. “I – when I realised that Simon knew nothing, I thought it best that he not learn – ”

   “Really?” Jace’s voice was the velvet slide of a sword sliding free of its sheath. “Or are you still working with the Circle?”

   “No!” Hodge protested – angrily, Simon thought, but the man could be faking. He reached into his pocket for Simiel. “If Simon did not know, then – then I did not want to be the one to tell him – ”

   “Tell me what?” Simon demanded. He stood up, leaving his bag on the sofa. “ _What about my mom?_ ”

   “That,” Hodge said tiredly, “she was Valentine’s wife.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

   “Give me one good reason why I should believe anything you say,” Simon said coldly.

   Hodge looked at him sadly. “I have already been punished once for working with Valentine,” he said quietly. “I would not do aught to earn such punishment again.”

   Jace’s eyes widened, and Hodge dipped his head. “You are thinking of the curse that binds me here, aren’t you? You always assumed it was a vengeance spell cast by an angry demon or warlock. I let you think it. But it is not the truth. The curse that binds me was cast by the Clave.”

   “For being in the Circle?”

   “For not leaving it before the Uprising,” Hodge corrected. “As your father did.” He glanced at Simon. “As Jocelyn did.”

   Jace was frowning. “But the Lightwoods weren’t punished, were they?”

   “There were extenuating circumstances in their case,” Hodge explained. “They were married; they had a child.” He smiled wryly. “Although it’s not as if they reside in this outpost, far from home, by their own choice. We were banished here, the three of us – the four of us, I should say; Alec was a squalling baby when we left the Glass City. They can return to Idris on official business only, and then only for short times. I can never return. I will never see the Glass City again.”

   Jace stared. He was seeing a side of his tutor that he never had before. Simon didn’t have the same kind of emotional attachment. “My heart bleeds,” he said coldly. “Poor you. You were going to slaughter those Downworlders, and you were punished for it. I think you got off lightly.” He stooped and grabbed his rucksack, swinging it over his shoulder. “I’m done.”

   “You’re – where are you going?” Jace demanded.

   “I’m _leaving_.” Simon didn’t take his eyes off Hodge, but he wanted to. He wanted to look at Jace and drink him in, because the sudden, sharp realisation that Simon might never see him again made him shake. But Hodge was the one who scared him. “I don’t trust a single word coming out of your mouth,” Simon told him, his voice shaking. Anger or fear, or both; Simon couldn’t tell. “You didn’t tell me about my mom. You’ve got a pretty good motive for striking back at the Clave, it sounds like. And you’re connected to the people who seem to want me dead. So yeah, I’m pulling a Nightcrawler and blowing this joint.”

   “Simon, please.” Hodge’s face was stricken. “I swear to you, my time with the Circle is in the past. If, as I suspect, they are rising again, it is something I have no part in. As for Jocelyn – it was clear she had her reasons for keeping your heritage from you. I meant only to respect her wishes.”

   “Words are easy,” Simon said. “But actions speak louder.” Hodge hadn’t been allowed to act on his true personality and desires, because he’d been bound in one place – his choices weren’t his own. He _could_ be the kindly old tutor he seemed; or he could be raging at his confinement, kept from acting on his Valentine-condoned hate of Downworlders only by the Clave’s curse. With everything going on, Simon wasn’t willing to take the risk.

   Hodge hadn’t needed to lie about Jocelyn.

   “Your mother was also a member of the Circle,” Hodge reminded him. “You seem to hold no grudge against her for it.”

   “I know my mom,” Simon said bluntly. “I don’t know you.” He turned and walked for the doors.

   “It isn’t safe!” Hodge cried behind him. “Valentine is searching for the Cup, Simon, and from what you and Jace overheard he thinks you have it. You cannot leave the Institute!”

   Simon ignored him and pushed the door open without looking back. He closed it carefully, quietly – and the moment he heard the lock click shut he ran, bolting down the corridor as fast as his legs would carry him. Terror whipped at him, wild and unreasoning and pounding in time with his heartbeat as he turned corners and hurtled down stairs, desperately listening for any sign of somebody following him.

   There was something _wrong_. Hodge was lying, or had lied, and had too much of a connection to Valentine for Simon to feel anything close to safe here. Those Shadowhunters at his apartment hadn’t been after a friendly chat, not with those seraph blades, not working for the Shadowhunter Hitler. Not with the Ravener and the Forsaken they’d sent after him.

   Simon was in so far over his head he was a breath away from drowning.

   His bag bounced on his back as he skidded into the foyer with the elevator. Panting, thanking the creators of DC and Marvel that he hadn’t gotten lost, he slammed his hand on the button to call the lift up from the depths, and winced at the creaking shriek of old metal as it pulled itself up. Had anyone heard that?

   His heart stopped as a hand closed on his wrist and whirled him so that he fell back against the elevator door and it was Jace, with the same wild, frenzied look in his eyes as when he’d seen Simon covered in blood and for a second Simon was sure, he was 110% _positive_ that Jace was about to kiss him. He felt the certainty of it all the way down to his bones, thrilling and electric and frozen.

   “You – ” Jace’s voice was hoarse; it ran down Simon’s spine like a razor. “ – can’t go. Hodge is right, Simon. If Valentine is looking for you, then this is the only place you’re safe.”

   “I’m _not_ safe here,” Simon heard himself say. The lost kiss, the kiss-that-never-was – its loss hit him like a blow, left him breathless. But he was mad, clearly. Jace was straight. One of those awesome straight guys confident enough in their sexuality, masculinity to flirt back and not freak out, but – not really interested. Ever. “Weren’t you listening?”

   “I heard that Valentine is looking for the Mortal Cup, and thinks you have it!” Jace snapped. Simon swallowed. “Do you know what he wanted to use it for, after he’d won the Uprising? He was going to make Shadowhunters out of mundane children, build himself a child army, even though the Cup _kills_ nine out of ten of those unprepared for the change.” He shook his head angrily. “It’s the key to his gaining an utterly loyal, fanatical army, a potentially limitless one, _and he thinks you have it._ ”

   Simon closed his eyes, because Jace was almost terrifyingly gorgeous when he was blazing with righteous rage. “Jace,” he said quietly, “how does Hodge know Valentine wants the Cup? Last I heard, everyone thought it was destroyed.”

   He felt Jace’s fingers go tense against his wrist, and opened his eyes.

   “Exactly.” Simon wrenched his wrist free, and shoved open the elevator door.

   “Simon – Simon, _wait_.” The blond caught the door and held it open – and jerked back with a hiss when Simon slapped his fingers.

   “Can you explain it?” Simon demanded. “Is there a Shadowhunter spy network, are there demon-killing 007s? Is there a reasonable reason Hodge would know what the _hell_ is in Valentine’s head?”

   “What? No, there are no Shadowhunter spies – I don’t know, maybe! We can _ask_.”

   “And he’ll tell us? Like he told me about my mom?” Simon jerked the door closed and locked it. “I’m not staying here so he can hand me over to some f-freaking maniac.”

   “You’re being an idiot, he wouldn’t do that – by the Angel, _Simon_.”

   Jace sounded so frantic that Simon’s hand looked for the lock automatically, but the elevator was already moving, and there was no stopping it. The last glimpse he had of Jace was the blond’s fingers pressing against one of his runes, whispering something quick and quiet.

   Simon realised, then, that Simiel was still in his hand. He hadn’t given it back.

*

   Alec was waiting for him when he stepped out of the cage down below.

   “Are you here to stop me?” Simon asked calmly. He was proud that his voice stayed even.

   “Jace doesn’t want you to go.” Alec was sprawled in one of the chairs, seemingly at ease. “But _I_ say if you want to get yourself eaten by Ravener demons, it’s no concern of mine.”

   It was amazing, Simon thought, that even as Alec was giving him what he wanted, he still managed to piss Simon off. “What is your problem?” he demanded. “Ever since I showed up, you’ve been acting like I’m the Superman to your Lex Luther.”

   Alec’s face twisted. “Do you ever get tired of speaking in tongues?”

   Simon gaped. “How can you – oh God, you people _really_ need to read some comic books, your ignorance is criminal.” He bit his tongue to stop himself from explaining Superman in epic detail. “What I mean is, what did I ever do to you?”

   “And you call me ignorant.” Alec’s eyes flashed as he leaned forward. “You swan in here as though you slew Lucifer, you insult our weapons and our tactics – yes, I know about that,” he snapped before Simon could speak. “And that’s another thing: you distract Jace. You make him forget what he was born to be. You make him forget who he _is_ , and then you flaunt him like a trophy, like a piece of meat. You’re a damn incubus sowing chaos wherever you go, so _no_ , I’m not going to stop you from leaving. I hope you never come back.”

   “...Wow,” Simon said slowly. “No, seriously, tell me what you really think.”

   “I just did,” Alec snapped.

   Simon shook his head. “It’s a figure of speech,” he said quietly. His throat felt tight. “But, well, you’re entitled to your own opinion.” He uncurled his fingers from Simiel’s little silver cylinder. “I was going to leave this on the doorstep, but would you give it to Jace for me?”

   “Give him – ” Alec’s voice cut off as Simon held out the seraph blade, and the expression on his face... Simon had never (thank God) seen anyone stabbed, but he thought that if he did, they would look like Alec did now: gut-punched, raw shock and a pain Simon couldn’t imagine warring for control of his features.

   “Where – where did you get that?” Alec’s voice was ragged, and Simon had to resist the urge to whip Simiel out of sight, since it clearly (inexplicably) hurt Alec so much.

   “Jace gave it to me,” he said hesitantly. “I mean – I think he was just lending it to me, so I figured I ought to give it back – ”

   “ _Jace gave it to you?_ ” Before Simon could answer Alec shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t do that. He knows – ” He cut himself off, closed his eyes, and sucked in a breath. When he looked back at Simon, his eyes were hard as stone. “Give it here,” he ordered coldly.

   Abruptly Simon really, _really_ didn’t want to. But it had been his idea, something he’d thought was a good one before Alec went and screwed it up. He told himself to be the mature person, and he dropped it into Alec’s hand, ignoring the wrench of regret as he did so.

   Alec’s hand tilted almost before the blade touched his palm, crying out and wrenching his hand away. Simiel clattered onto the floor, and Alec – Simon stepped back because Alec looked ready to murder him.

   “I’m sorry – ” Simon tried, but Alec just snarled. He wrenched at the cuff of his sleeve, pulling it down until it covered his hand – Simon glimpsed a stripe of angry burn, the exact size and shape of an unextended seraph blade – and snatched Simiel up from the ground. “I don’t know how that – ”

   It hadn’t burned Jace –

   “ _Get out_ ,” Alec hissed, and Simon flinched away from the rage in his eyes. “You have no right to be here, you have _no right_ to a seraph blade – !”

   “Its name is Simiel,” Simon said, angry and cold and unthinking, and Alec swung at him.

   In that moment Simon would have given anything to have been able to catch Alec’s fist in his own; he would have loved the surprise on Alec’s face before he, Simon, unleashed a hitherto-unsuspected can of kick-ass. But Simon was more a Dave Lizewski than a Hit Girl and he couldn’t even duck out of the way in time; Alec’s fist smashed not into his jaw but his throat, and Simon went down like a ton of bricks.

   He landed on his side – he would be grateful, later, since landing on his bag might have crushed the electronics – and immediately scrabbled at his neck because he couldn’t _breathe_ , he didn’t even care about the pain because there was no _air_ and everything was panic, blinding, screaming panic, no thoughts no logic just silent screaming because he couldn’t make a sound couldn’t _breathe_ –

   Something grabbed his arm, pulling it away from his neck, and he lashed out clumsily, freaking, everything was getting dark at the edges and he didn’t want to die, not now not ever it was staring him in the face and he couldn’t –

   A new pain, this one fiery and familiar, and he gasped. _Gasped_ : his lungs inflated and Simon coughed violently, sucking in huge gulps of incredible oxygen and blinking tears out of his eyes.

   Alec knelt next to him, his face pale and terrified. A stele in one hand explained the rune-pain at the base of Simon’s throat, but Simon didn’t care; he was shaking with excess adrenalin, too shell-shocked and wrecked for awe or interest or even gratitude.

   “ – didn’t mean to hit you so hard,” Alec was saying, his voice tinged with something like hysteria, a diluted version of the force shaking Simon to pieces. “I’m so sorry, I just, I just snapped – it bonded to you, and then, its name – ”

   “Get the fuck away from me,” Simon said shakily, and Alec’s babbling cut off. He looked stricken, and, wow, look at all the fucks Simon _didn’t give_.

   “You need to go to the Infirmary,” Alec said quietly, ashamed.

   “Get. The fuck. Away from me.”

   “But – ”

   “ _GO!_ ” Simon screamed, and felt no satisfaction when Alec flinched. “I don’t want your fucking help, I don’t want the Infirmary, I don’t want your precious seraph blade!” His voice was shaking, and he told himself it was fury. “ _GO THE FUCK AWAY!_ ”

   He didn’t look, didn’t watch as Alec stumbled to his feet as if drunk. Simon felt as though his organs were trembling, shaky and horrible and sick, and he had to get Alec away because he refused to let the Shadowhunter see his tears, and sobs were already catching in his throat, hot and painful. He kept missing a breath and panicking all over again.

   Eventually he realised that Alec was gone, and that he couldn’t stay here on the floor. He’d thought that staying on his feet against the Ravener was difficult, or swallowing his fear and going for the Forsaken, but they were nothing compared to the effort of getting up off the ground now. His muscles felt like overcooked spaghetti, he was still shaking, and he wanted so badly to just sit and cry through the adrenalin. But Jace or Hodge could walk into the foyer at any moment.

   He got up. He settled his rucksack between his shoulders. He went outside and found the van; he unlocked it and got in. He turned on the engine and started driving. His hands shook and everything felt raw and jittery.

   He didn’t drive very far; in a clinical tone of thought he recognised that he probably wasn’t safe to operate heavy machinery. He pulled over and switched off the engine.

   Then he put his head on his arms and cried.

*

   When his tear ducts ran dry, Simon called Clary.

   “It’s me,” he said raggedly when she answered.

   “SIMON!” He winced and held the phone away from his ear. “Simon Robin Fray, where the hell have you _been?!”_

   “It’s Batman, not Robin,” Simon complained.

   “You don’t deserve to be Batman,” Clary told him. “You’ve been missing for days! The police came looking for you and your mom! I was starting to think you’d died!”

   Simon flinched. “Well, I haven’t,” he said quietly.

   She must have heard something in his voice, because she paused. “Are you all right?” she asked worriedly. “Are you with your mom?”

   “No. My mom’s – mom’s missing. I don’t know where she is.” He took a deep breath. “Would it be okay if I came and stayed with you?”

   “Of course,” she said instantly, and he felt a wave of relief and gratitude. “Do you need my mom to pick you up?”

   “No, I’ve got Eric’s van. I can drive.”

   Clary snorted. “Thank goodness for that. Eric hasn’t shut up about it since you disappeared. You know all the instruments are still in the back, right?”

   Simon looked over his shoulder into the back, and groaned at the sight of Millennium Lint’s assorted music-makers. “Oh, God, I’m a dead man. I completely forgot about them.”

   “I think the current consensus is that they’re going to sew you into a suit of bacon and drop you in a shark tank,” Clary agreed mildly.

   Simon blinked. “That’s...specific.”

   “Don’t worry, none of them can sew.” He could almost feel all the questions she was swallowing – _what happened, where were you, are you really okay?_ – but instead she only added, “Call when you’re close and I’ll have a pizza waiting,” and she hung up before he could tell her he loved her.

*

   She really did have a pizza waiting, one of the homemade dough bases the size of a bedside table that her mom made in bulk and froze for occasions “Just like this,” Clary declared. She’d covered it in tuna and mozzarella and tomato sauce, and Simon tore into it, absolutely ravenous.

   “Did you not eat while you were gone?” Clary asked in amazement.

   “No – I mean yes, I did, just – I’m really hungry,” he said lamely. The adrenalin of his encounter with Alec had left him achingly hollow and starving, even after the McDonald’s with Jace.

   “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

   He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

   “Don’t apologise, you idiot.” She sat down opposite him. “Have you called Luke yet?” she asked suddenly. There was something in her voice, something...

   ...Something Simon didn’t notice, because he swallowed hard and nearly choked on a string of cheese at the reminder of Luke’s existence. “Um, yeah. Yeah, I did,” he managed hoarsely. Choking reminded him far too much of his trachea crushing inwards under Alec’s fist. “But he – he wasn’t interested.”

   He’d expected her to be shocked – this was _Luke_ they were talking about, the man who had been the father figure in both their lives – but she only frowned. “Are you sure?”

   He thought back to the phone conversation. “Very,” he said bitterly.

   Clary chewed her lip. “He was frantic when he came around here looking for you,” she said slowly.

   “He – what?” That didn’t jive with what Luke had said to him at all. _‘I’m not your father,’_ he remembered, the unfamiliar coolness shocking into Simon like a knife. “Really?”

   “Yeah. He thought you were staying with me, and when I told him I hadn’t seen you...”

   “When was this?” Simon asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

   “This afternoon.” She looked at him oddly. “Why, does it matter?”

   “No,” Simon said slowly. “I just wondered.” This afternoon – that made it _after_ the phone call this morning. Why had Luke come looking for him? He sure hadn’t sounded as though he gave a damn. “I know – I know I’ve got a ton of explaining to do, about everything, but can it wait until the morning? I’m going to pass out soon, and then I’ll get tuna on my face from face-planting in this delicious, delicious pizza.”

   Clary slapped his shoulder playfully as she pushed out of her chair, gathering up the plates. “It can wait,” she agreed, and then paused. Something in his expression must have touched her, because her face went soft. “All of it can wait,” she said gently, and Simon had never loved her as much as he did in that moment – overwhelmingly, adoringly, the way religious people loved God.

   She must have seen that in his face too, because she put the plates down by the sink and crossed the kitchen to him. Without a word she wrapped her arms around him from behind his chair, resting her head on his shoulder.

   Simon held her arms around his chest and closed his eyes, just breathing her in.

   “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he whispered hoarsely.

   She kissed his cheek and let him go. “Get killed by ravening orc hordes,” she said cheerfully.

 _“One time!”_ Simon protested as she laughed. The sound filled him up with warm brightness, like ribbons of sunlight. “It was _one time_ , I was distracted, and nothing will convince me that you did not set it up.”

   “It’s true, I am empress of the puppet-masters,” Clary said mildly, with a very unangelic smirk. “But you will never prove a thing.” She flicked his ear. “Now up to bed. Come on, before you fall over.”

   “How can I fall over when I’m in a chair?” Simon asked the ceiling.

   “I’m sure you could manage it. I have great faith in your abilities.”

   “That would sound far more encouraging if you were complimenting my ninja skills instead of my clumsiness,” Simon commented. He got up and stretched, joints popping.

   “We have to be quiet,” Clary told him, lowering her voice as they left the kitchen. “Mom’s asleep. She wanted to see you,” she added, “but she has to be up early tomorrow.”

   “It’s fine,” Simon said softly. “I’ll see her when she gets in tomorrow.”

   Clary and her mom had made up a camp bed in the corner of Clary’s room, and Clary went back to get a glass of water while Simon dressed for bed and brushed his teeth. Which were, he noticed, peering into the mirror, _foul_. That was what you got for not brushing them for three days, though. Gross.

   It was such a relief, being here. The familiarity of it, the easy warmth as they got into their separate beds and switched the lights off... It was as if Simon had been turned to stone by a curse, and now the spell was broken, everything in him relaxing into supple warmth. It wasn’t as good as being home with his mom – his heart twinged, wondering where Jocelyn was, if she was all right – but it was Clary.

   For the moment, that was good enough.

*

   He woke gasping in the middle of the night, from nightmares of his mother’s screaming face and his throat collapsing under Alec’s fist.

   Without asking – or being asked – without any words at all, Clary climbed out of her bed and into Simon’s. The blankets rustled as she settled behind him, slipping her arm around his waist the way she had when they were kids.

   He had no more nightmares that night.

*

   “You’re going to think I’m insane,” he told her the next morning, warming his hands around a mug of coffee. “As in, Alucard from _Hellsing_ insane.”

   “That’s pretty crazy,” Clary said warily.

   Simon sighed, nerves and – incredibly – something close to embarrassment curdling the coffee in his stomach. “Just – pretend I’m telling you the plot of a new anime, okay?”

   In the books, Simon thought to himself, they nearly always skipped over the explanation. They said something along the lines of ‘he told her everything’, and left it at that. They didn’t mention how weirdly embarrassing it was to claim supernatural experiences for yourself, how acutely aware you were that the chance you would be believed was miniscule. Even when an author did write the explanation – the reiteration, for the reader – they gave the explainer smooth, quick words: there were no overindulgence of ‘um’s or ‘and then’s. Fictional characters never experienced frustration at being forced to give the quick-notes version of the moments with the most punch – because how could he put into words everything he’d felt with the Ravener demon? Or the Forsaken? Or running for his life from bad guys who almost certainly wanted to do bad things to him?

   And not in any kind of fun way, either.

   He didn’t so much finish as trail off, keeping his eyes firmly on his coffee rather than see the disbelief on Clary’s face.

   “Well, it’s not Alucard insane,” she said finally.

   Simon’s head snapped up. “What?” he asked stupidly.

   She shrugged. “Well, you know – Alucard has that whole suicidal thing going on. And he’s a sociopath. You should pick your comparisons a little more carefully.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Also, I followed Luke after he left yesterday and overheard a _really_ weird conversation that suddenly makes a lot more sense.”

   “You _what?_ ”

   And then it was Clary’s turn to explain – much more calmly and eloquently than Simon had – what she’d been up to while he was gone.

   “It was Luke,” she told Simon, “the way he was acting yesterday. He came around looking for you, like I said, demanding to talk to you – but then when I told him you weren’t here he tried to convince me that you were staying with relatives out of state.”

   “I don’t have any relatives.” Unless, Simon thought suddenly, he had Shadowhunter relations that he didn’t know about. Did his mom have brothers and sisters? Were her parents still alive? Were there people in the world bound to him by blood, that he’d never even suspected existed?

   “Exactly!”

   So she’d followed him –

   “How, by trailing him in a trench coat and fedora?”

   “No, genius, I took my mom’s car.”

   “Did your mother give you permission to stalk Luke in her car?”

   “That,” Clary said archly, “is irrelevant to my story.”

   Luke had gone to his apartment, which lay over his bookshop –

   “Imagine that, he _went home_ –”

   “I’m sorry, I don’t remember mocking you when you spun me a story about _demons_.”

   “...Carry on.”

   She’d snuck in through a window –

   “A _window_?”

   “Would you stop interrupting!”

   “No, hang on – I don’t understand. You can’t have been so suspicious that you thought _breaking and entering_ was a valid response!”

   “You didn’t hear him,” Clary said darkly. “When he was talking about you – looking for you. He was _frantic_ , desperate to find you – and then he tried to laugh it off. Damn right I was suspicious.”

   “But he was in the house,” Simon protested helplessly. “Why didn’t you wait till he left? That would at least make a kind of sense, you could go through his stuff or something.” He shook his head. “How did you even climb through a window? How did you _do_ that?”

   “It was a downstairs window,” she admitted. “And he wasn’t in the house. I’m not that stupid, Simon, _of course_ I waited until he left again. I followed him because I thought he’d lead me somewhere else, maybe wherever _you_ were. And then he left and I went in.”

   “ _Broke_ in.”

   “ _One_ more interruption, Fray...”

   But Luke had come back “before I’d found anything.” Clary hid, and that was when things had gotten incredibly strange.

   “You’d broken into Luke’s house, and it only got strange _then_?”

   “FRAY.”

   There were two men with Luke, men who called him _Lucian_ and _Graymark_. “They talked about some kind of war,” Clary said. “One they might have been in together, ages ago? It wasn’t really clear. Something about an uprising.”

   They’d said horrible things – talked about skinning people, and made mocking implications that Luke was some kind of monster. “ ‘Still recognisably human’, one of them said, as if it was a surprise.”

   “They were looking for you, Simon,” Clary said quietly. “They wanted to know if Luke had seen you, and he said – he asked if Valentine had sent them to find you.”

   Simon felt cold. “The Shadowhunter Hitler is looking for me?” Hodge had said the same, he remembered sickly.

   Clary nodded unhappily. “They said that your mom had hidden something, and Valentine thought you might have it or know where it was.” She looked at him expectantly.

   Simon ran a hand through his hair, his stomach in knots. “There’s this magic cup,” he said lamely.

   Clary rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding.”

   “Nope. Straight out of D&D. It can turn normal people into Shadowhunters, apparently, and Hodge said that’s what Valentine’s after.”

   “They did mention a cup,” Clary said slowly. “But I thought they were – I don’t know, I didn’t think they’d be so obsessed with a _cup_. I thought it was code for something.” She shook her head quickly, making her red hair whirl around her face. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. They – I think they know where your mom is. They said that if Luke knew where ‘it’ was, Valentine would swap your mom for it.”  

   It was as if, for just one moment, the planet stopped spinning. For just a second everything was still and silent and cold, sharp as crystal and tense as an indrawn breath, and Simon’s heart stopped.

   _She’s alive. Mom’s alive. Somebody knows where she is and she’s ALIVE._

   Someone pressed the _play_ button, and the world slipped back onto its axis. With it came logic, unfortunately brutal: _you don’t know that she’s alive. Some psycho megalomaniac has her – if he even does, he could be lying to get what he wants, to trick Luke into giving him the damn Cup. But if he DOES have her, she might be hurt. She might be dead._

   Thinking the words – even as coolly and dispassionately as he could – ripped his breath away as surely as Alec’s fist had. There _was_ no ‘cool and dispassionate’ when you were contemplating your mother’s death – especially when that death wasn’t far off in the future, asleep in her bed, but at the hands of some genocidal ex-husband.

   _What if he hurts her? What if he tortures her to make her tell him about the Cup?_

   He shoved away from the table and bent over his knees, clutching his head. “I’m going to be sick,” he whispered. His nightmares last night, his mom screaming – was that real? What if that was happening, what if it was happening _right now_ –

   “Simon!” Clary was kneeling beside him, her hands on his shoulders. “Stop it, stop thinking about it – look, Luke knows these guys, maybe he can help – he can tell the police – ”

   “Really?” Simon snapped. “Is that what he said? Because he told _me_ that it was mom’s fault and he wasn’t getting involved, that he wouldn’t help. So I’m not all that sure we can depend on him right now.”

   From Clary’s face, he knew that whatever Luke had said, it hadn’t been an unreserved leap to Jocelyn’s defence. “There’s still the police,” she said firmly. “I can tell them what I saw.”

   “You couldn’t see Jace,” Simon reminded her, suddenly tired. _‘Trust me, little boy, the police aren’t going to arrest someone they can’t see.’_ “Valentine’s a Shadowhunter too. They’ll never be able to find him.” He breathed in shakily, trying to stop seeing last night’s nightmare, playing on a loop behind his eyes. “God, _Luke_. Luke’s one as well. My whole life has just...”

   Wordlessly, Clary leaned up and hugged him. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured as he hugged back fiercely. “It _will_.”

   _How?_ Simon wanted to ask. _How is it going to be okay? This isn’t a video game or a book, this is REAL LIFE. Kids don’t defeat evil adults in real life. People get HURT in real life. People DIE._

   He wasn’t equipped for this. He didn’t have superpowers or a 17-die score intelligence, and if it had been abruptly revealed that he wasn’t (quite) human, well – that didn’t seem to have any practical uses, since he also didn’t have the first idea about Shadowhunter runes and how they worked, or any way to draw them, or Hell, while he was whinging about how unfair the world was, he didn’t have a lifetime of martial arts training either. Or a pony.

   On the other hand, he knew who did. Well, not the pony – but the rest of it. A whole country of people, from the sound of it, who would be _eager_ to hunt Valentine down once they knew he was alive.

   If it _was_ Valentine, and not someone else using his name. But if Luke had fought in the Uprising he would know the real Valentine, maybe? From what Clary had said, Luke hadn’t been surprised, or even very scared or angry, to be contacted by the man.

   _So: Shadowhunter Voldemort, as well as Shadowhunter Hitler. Nice._

_Does this make me Harry Potter or Churchill?_

   “I can practically hear you thinking,” Clary said lightly. “You should stop that.”

   “You know you love me for my brain,” Simon mumbled, but he pulled out of her embrace and straightened up with a sigh. His back had been starting to protest, anyway.

   Clary got to her feet. “You can’t fret about any of this, anyway,” she told him. “You have far bigger things to worry about.”

   “Than _my mom_?” Simon asked, more sharply than he’d meant to.

   But she didn’t flinch. “Your mom is missing,” she pointed out. “Eric, on the other hand, is very much present. And on the warpath.”

   As an attempt to change the subject, it was pretty clumsy, but Simon understood what Clary wasn’t saying: that there was no point tearing himself apart over something he couldn’t fix. Not yet, anyway. Not until he had a plan. “I’ll get my phone,” he sighed, allowing the conversation to be diverted. “If he kills me, I want to be cremated.”


	9. Interlude: Simiel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here’s the DVD Extra/Interlude I promised! I hope you guys enjoy it; Cassie and I worked VERY HARD on this one. Clues are dropped! Also, I know it’s short, but chapter 9 is nearly double the length of a normal chapter, so I think that’ll make up for the shortness of this one. Enjoy!

   _Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_

   Alec lowered the _parashu_ , panting. The Indian battle-axe was rarely a convenient weapon in a real battle, but there was nothing like it for exorcising demons.

   So to speak.

   He bared his teeth at the wooden mannequin in front of him, seeing the mundie boy’s face on it. The mahogany wood – dark and solid, to better prepare training Shadowhunters for those demons with tough skin or scaled armour – was gouged and splintered, no longer even recognisable as a humanoid figure, but he could still hear Simon’s voice saying _‘Its name is Simiel.’_

 _Simiel._ Alec hefted the axe and swung viciously, hacking at the figure’s chest. _Simiel_. It echoed in his head, driving through his heart like the blade it was. He would have screamed at the dummy if he hadn’t been worried about anyone overhearing him. He didn’t want to have to explain why he was hurling the worst words he knew for _mundane_ at a training mannequin.

   _Simiel._

   His face twisted into a snarl and he attacked the dummy’s head, hacking at it, _rending_ it. He threw everything he had at it, all his rage and hurt, every ounce of his strength; he wanted the mundie eviscerated, eradicated, _undone_. He should have left Simon’s trachea crushed, should have let him –

   “I think it’ll be a good boy now, Alec,” Jace drawled from behind him. “Really. Please don’t hurt it anymore.”

   Alec swung the _parashu_ two handed with everything in him; the head of the axe cleaved through the thick wooden trunk and sliced it in half.

   Jace frowned. “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

   The upper half of the dummy fell to the ground. “Not everyone does what you want all the time,” he snapped.

   “No, but most of them do,” Jace said easily. He was in full gear, which was unusual but breathtaking – black leather sheathing him from ankle to throat, twin crossed belts slung across his hips for his seraph blades, stele, and half a dozen other sharp, dangerous things. None of which were as sharp or dangerous as Jace himself. “Do you want to talk about it?”

   Alec stared at him. “Excuse me?”

   Jace shrugged liquidly. “Don’t look at _me_ ,” he told Alec’s obvious shock. “Isabelle said I should ask.”

   Alec felt bitterness clog his throat. Of course Jace hadn’t thought to come ask on his own. He probably hadn’t even _noticed_ –

   “And of course, I can feel your, shall we say, _loathing_ , from the other side of the city,” Jace said blandly. His golden eyes were lazy, almost sleepy, but it was a lion’s trick to put prey at ease and Alec wasn’t going to fall for it. Jace was never more deadly than when he was pretending not to be. “So.” He crossed to one of the walls in four quick steps, lifted down a Chinese _dao_ sabre, and flung it at Alec.

   Who caught it easily by the hilt, bemused. “You want to spar?”

   Jace grinned. “You didn’t actually think I wanted to _talk_ , did you?”

   On any other day, Alec probably would have laughed. Today he lunged.

   “Ah, so it’s for me,” Jace commented, lightly ducking out of the way. “I wondered.”

   How could he be so blasé? Alec wondered in a rage, spinning on his heel to face his _parabatai_ again. He’d dreamed – and hated himself for dreaming – of receiving a named seraph blade from Jace. For _years_ it had been his worst, most shameful fantasy.

   And Jace had handed over Simiel – _Simiel_ – to a mundane he’d known barely a full _day_.

   He snarled and whirled the _parashu_ and _dao_ for Jace’s neck; leapt, slashed, over and over in increasingly rapid, vicious thrusts and cuts as his _parabatai_ bent and swayed like a willow, dodging Alec’s blades with moves no mundane could have accomplished outside of an action film.

   “Grab a weapon and fight me!” Alec forced through gritted teeth. “Stop _running!_ ”

   “You know I just _love_ to oblige you,” Jace drawled. He swept his body backwards, his torso bending parallel to the ground beneath a blow that would have cleaved his skull. “But I think you need to work off some steam. I’m _helping_.”

   “You are not helping!” Alec dropped the _dao_ , heedless of the clatter it made against the floor, and gripped his axe with both hands, baring his teeth. “ _You_ – _you’re_ my damn problem, Jace Wayland!”

   “I guessed,” Jace said wryly. He didn’t seem at all unnerved by the _parashu_ , even knowing that Alec had the build to wield it well – and it whipped up Alec’s rage, that unthinking dismissal of everything Alec was and could be and wanted, wanted so Angel-damned badly. “Are you going to tell me what it is I’ve done now, or are we going to dance all night?”

   Alec nearly howled with frustration. _How can you not know?_ he shouted silently as he lunged and swung, two-handed, throwing his shoulders behind it. _Damn you to Hell, Wayland,_ how can you not know?

   Jace swayed, barely seeming to move and yet the _parashu_ never touched him. It was like fighting a ghost – only this wasn’t a fight at all, Jace hadn’t drawn a single weapon and was making no move to defend himself. As if he thought he didn’t need to, as if he _knew_ he didn’t need to –

   Alec did not snarl, although he wanted to. He feinted instead, moving the way only a Shadowhunter could, weightless as a feather and solid as steel; he felt Jace’s intention through the _parabatai_ rune and was there waiting for him, axe in hand, raised, ready –

   “ _Kabshiel!”_

   A high, pure note rang out through the room. The air trembled with it, and Jace stood there like a statue, his face utterly expressionless as he bore his seraph blade, seemingly without effort, against the down-strike of the _parashu_.

   Alec dropped it and whipped out his own, cross-drawing with a snarl. “Duma, Himeros!”

   Jace’s eyes widened but Alec gave him no time; he scissored his blades and Jace had to drop to the floor, roll and spring to his feet, plucking another seraph blade from his belt. “Rachiel,” he murmured, and then he, too, had a matching pair of shortswords, gleaming like glass.

   Alec snapped out, twisting like a dancer, Duma slashing across Jace’s throat and Himeros lunging for his heart. His _parabatai_ parried both blows and they were off, a glittering whirl of blades like a hailstorm, flashing like ice and crashing together like thunder and the glass bells of Faerie. Again and again and again their swords met, crying out in crystalline song, blade kissing blade the way Alec could never, would never kiss Jace –

   _Look at me look at me look at me!_ Alec cried silently as they whirled and spun, parted and came together like the dancers at one of Alicante’s balls, light and beautiful as lovers. _See me!_

_I’m right here, I’m right here and I love you –_

   As if Jace had heard him, the blond missed a strike and Alec swept his legs out from under him, as smoothly as if they’d choreographed it. Jace went down with a grunt and Alec was _there_ , Himeros’s edge laid tight against Jace’s throat, pinning his _parabatai_ to the floor with his hips. They were both breathing hard, and Jace’s eyes were wild, the way they always got during a fight, shining and mad and it would be so easy, so easy to just lean down and –

   So easy that it killed him –

   “Feel better now?” Jace asked softly, and Alec could have hit him for the cold, hard kiss of reality, one with teeth and cruelty in it.

   “You gave Simon a named blade,” he said instead, just as soft, and his muscles shook with rage, not strain.

   Jace stilled, and Alec _watched_ his face shut down and become maddeningly blank. “Ah. Is that what this is about?”

   With a snarl, Alec shoved himself upward, away from the sweet torture of Jace’s body pressed tight against his. “You gave him a _named blade_ ,” he repeated furiously. _When I’m right here, bleeding out for you every single Raziel-damned day. When I’d cut my heart out for a named knife from you._ “You staked a claim on a mundane you’ve known all of 24 hours. What in Raziel’s name were you _thinking?_ ”

   Jace pushed himself up onto his elbows, but made no move to stand. “We were walking into a probable ambush – ”

   “Don’t give me that,” Alec snapped. “You didn’t give him the unbonded spare I _know_ you carry, and if you’d meant it as _daiosask_ _ō_ you would have reclaimed it after the fight.” He wanted, masochistically, for Jace to say it, to admit what he’d done, but his voice still broke on the words. “It was _armask_ _ō_. Wasn’t it?”

   Jace said nothing, and it was infuriating and heartbreaking, because Jace’s words never failed him, not ever, and that they did now was as clear a confession as Alec had ever heard.

   “And you meant it to be all along,” Alec realised. “I wanted to believe you just forgot to take it back, but you didn’t, did you?” He curled his hands into fists, and didn’t know what it was he wanted to hit – Jace, or Simon’s throat again. “You really think you’re in love with him.”

   _I spent so long telling myself it was all right, that it wasn’t my fault you couldn’t love me. And now, and now to learn that you could have, and chose_ him _instead –_

   Jace’s eyes glittered, but he stayed silent. Alec couldn’t tell if it was defiance or something else, something more dangerous and more painful.

   Alec heard Simon’s voice in his head, the casual, easy way he had said _‘Its name is Simiel.’_ As though it were nothing, because he had no idea what it meant that Jace had chosen a name for the blade so close to Simon’s own. That Jace had _named a seraph blade after him_. “You don’t even know him!” Alec protested furiously. “He’s spent most of the time since you met _asleep!_ ”

   _What can he do that I cannot, what is he that I am not?_ his heart cried.

   “Is this because he’s another guy?” Jace asked, something like contempt in his eyes. “Can’t stand to look at me now, Alec?”

   Alec almost laughed. _Yes, yes it is, but not the way you mean._ “No,” he said harshly. “It’s because you’re panting like a dog after some quailing put you barely know, because you _think_ you’re in love with a curséd _athumos_ – ”

   He didn’t even see Jace move; the blond was on the floor and then he simply _wasn’t_ , a snarled _“Rachiel”_ and Jace had the blade against Alec’s throat, a sharp stinging pain as skin broke and Alec had known, he’d _known_ that Jace had let him win their spar.

   “Don’t talk about him like that,” Jace said, and Alec had never heard his voice like this – low and soft and cold, hard and glittering as diamond. “I watched him face down a Ravener untrained, watched him kill a Forsaken to _save my life_ , so don’t _ever_ call him _athumos_. Or we are going to have far bigger problems than your little temper tantrum.”

   “Why?” Alec demanded bitterly. “Would you really raise a hand to your _parabatai_? For _him?”_

   “No,” Jace snapped. “I would defend the honour of any impugned Shadowhunter the same way – ”

   “ _He is not a Shadowhunter!”_ Alec yelled, ignoring the inherent insanity of that statement because Jace would _not_ defend anyone’s honour, he would sit back and enjoy the show with popcorn. “He’s a _mundie!”_

   “He killed a Forsaken with a seraph blade.” There was pride there, pride and a wild, triumphant kind of satisfaction that made Alec want to scream, because he knew who it was for and he couldn’t bear it. “He killed one of the Shadow World and bonded with his weapon. By the old Law, he’s a Shadowhunter.”

   “He’s a bedamned _athumos_ whether you like it or not,” Alec hissed over the stab of pain in his chest – because that same Law disqualified him, Alec, from the Shadowhunter ranks, and didn’t Jace see that, didn’t he realise that by bestowing the rank on Simon he stripped it from his _parabatai?_ – “and _he doesn’t deserve your_ **_armask_** ** _ō_** _!”_

   Far from lashing out as Alec half-expected, Jace’s eyes narrowed, turned sharp and intense. It made Alec swallow nervously, being the focus of that searching gaze. It felt as though he spent every waking moment trying to make Jace see him – but now he felt stripped naked and found wanting as realisation broke over his _parabatai_ ’s face like dawn over darkness.

   “What did you do?” Jace asked quietly. He lowered Rachiel from Alec’s neck, and Alec honestly couldn’t read his expression – shocked and angry and dreading and wary. “ _Alec_.”

   Alec lifted his chin defiantly. “You had no right to give it to him.”

_“What did you do?”_

   _I almost killed him_ , Alec thought. _I didn’t mean to, but you broke my heart without even being in the room and I couldn’t stand it._

   He didn’t say that, though. Instead, wordlessly, he pulled Simiel out of his pocket, heedless of how the crystal burned his fingertips. The pain was barely a pinprick compared to the one in his ribcage.

   And then, deliberately, he tilted his hand and let the knife fall.

   Jace _moved_ , something raw and desperate on his face as he lunged to catch it, but Alec snapped out his fist and smashed it into Jace’s wrist, blocking him, feeling a burst of dark satisfaction as the seraph blade clattered and chimed against the floor.

   “Look at what this is doing to you,” he said harshly. “You’re pathetic. This isn’t you, Jace! You’re not – ”

   The floor slammed into his spine without warning.

   “You stole a seraph blade,” Jace said softly, dangerously, and Alec couldn’t see the blond’s face through the dazed pain in his back but he could feel it, feel Jace’s simmering rage through the _parabatai_ rune that bound them. “You took another’s _armask_ _ō_ , Alec. Anyone else would report you to the Clave.”

   “So do it,” Alec spat. He shoved himself up onto his elbows, refusing to take this lying down. He bared his teeth. “Let’s see what they have to say about you giving a named blade to an _athumos_.”

   Jace’s face hardened. “Say it once more,” he said softly. “Just _once more,_ Alec.”

   And Alec...didn’t. He closed his eyes, unable to bear it one second longer.

   He heard Jace leave and didn’t try to stop him. When he eventually pushed himself up off the ground, Simiel had vanished from the floor, and Alec couldn’t find it in himself to be surprised.

   Heartbroken, and raging. But not surprised.

 

 

* * *

 

  **NOTES**

   Kabshiel is the angel of grace and God’s favour.

   Duma is the angel prince of dreams.

   Himeros is the angel of unrequited love.

   Rachiel is the angel who governs sexuality.

   _Daiosask_ _ō_ is a word of my own creation, cobbled together from bits of ancient Greek, and is intended to mean something along the lines of battle-union or -bond. I’m not telling you what _armask_ _ō_ means yet, you’ll find out when Simon does.

 _Quailing put_ is a Medieval British/French insult; _quailing_ means fearful, and _put_ means vile.

   _Athumos_ is another ancient Greek word; in this verse it’s a dirty word for mundane, and translates as something like ‘spiritless’.


	10. Chapter 10

   “What do you mean, _we have a gig_?”  

   “I mean, _we have a gig_ ,” Eric said, far too calmly for someone who had arranged for Millennium Lint to perform while their lead singer and all their instruments had been MIA. “The guy at Pandemonium put in a good word for us. We’re playing – ”

   “ – Tomorrow night at Vatican, yes, I heard you the first time.” Simon ran a hand through his hair. “I just didn’t believe it!”

   “Believe it,” Kirk muttered.

   “We _tried_ to talk him out of it,” Matt added darkly. “But...”

   “But it’s Eric.” Simon glared at him, and Eric shrugged carelessly.

   “Look, what’s the problem? You’re here, we’ve got our instruments back... Everything’s fine!”

   “The _problem_ ,” Simon said, forcing himself to speak levelly, “is that my mom is _missing_. I’m not sure I’m up to performing.”

   “Maybe it would be good for you,” Eric offered. The hint of apology in his tone mollified Simon a little bit – but only a little. “You know...get your mind off things.”

   Simon stared until Eric winced. “Okay, bad choice of words. Sorry. But, seriously. What else are you gonna do; mope around writing emo shit?”

   “No, that’s your job.” Simon sighed. But what _was_ he supposed to do? He wondered unhappily. Go back to the Institute? And tell them what – that Valentine was alive, as they’d been starting to suspect, but Simon had no idea where he was? That his mom’s oldest friend was a Shadowhunter too, but more than ready to sell Simon and Jocelyn down the river?

   _Maybe they could interrogate Luke. Find out what he knows._ Simon chewed his lip, his stomach in knots.

   “Okay,” he said reluctantly – and swiped his hands in front of him when they cheered. “Quit acting like house elves I just gave socks to! And show me the set list.” He glared at Eric again. “You’d better have sorted it out already, Mr I-am-so-prepared.”

   “But of course.” Eric produced a sheet of paper like a magic trick, and Simon was not nearly as surprised as he should have been.

   Twenty minutes later he and Eric were arguing fiercely while Clary lectured Matt and Kirk on the importance of the Female Gaze, which from having heard it before Simon knew meant playing up the sex appeal so any girls in their audience could have something fun to watch. He would have liked to veto Clary’s suggestion of shirtlessness, but he was a little busy.

   “Get this through your head,” he forced through gritted teeth. “I can’t start with _Earthquake_ , Eric! It’s a screamer song, it kills my voice!”

   “Because it’s a killer song!” Eric said triumphantly, as if Simon had just surrendered the argument. “It’s the perfect opening!”

   “Yeah, and then I’ll be sub-par on _every other song of the night!_ The answer’s no!”

   For a moment, Eric’s grin faltered, but then it came back even more strongly than before. “Look, the problem is the warm-up, right? ‘Caus you can’t get your voice ready for the screamer stuff _and_ the normal songs?”

   “Not easily.” Simon narrowed his eyes. “Not without longer than I usually get to warm-up, anyway.”

   Eric spread his hands. “So why don’t we _just_ do the screamer stuff? It’s not like we’re playing Death Metal or some shit, it’s not super-screamer. It’s all perfect club stuff. Look, what if instead of...”

   The two of them bent over the set-list draft again, wielding their ballpoint pens like swords in their verbal duel. But they both knew that Eric was going to win: Simon was insanely proud of _Earthquake_ , and they all knew that he’d been longing for a chance to perform it properly. They swapped out _Step Up_ for _Courtesy Call, Shapeshifter_ for _The Dark,_ and then debated some of the slower songs.

   “They specifically said they wanted a few romantic songs in the mix,” Eric insisted, but Simon was dubious.

   “It’s a club, don’t they want people dancing? Fast music, fast dancing, people get thirsty and buy drinks?”

   “Slow dancing is still dancing, I guess?”

   “It gives them a break,” Kirk suggested when they asked the others what they thought. “The clubbers. They get their breath back, and then stay longer.”

   “Instead of getting tired and going home,” Matt agreed.

   Simon sighed. “All right then. But if this explodes in our faces, I’m blaming you,” and he jabbed his finger in Eric’s chest.

   Eric sniffed. “Acceptable,” he said grandly.

   Leaving Kirk and Matt to occupy Clary, Simon wrote down _Crush_ at the end of the set list.

   Eric raised his eyebrows. “You sure?” he asked quietly, the playful idiocy abruptly wiped from his voice.

   Simon took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he answered, just as softly. “She’s...yeah.” His stomach was in knots just thinking about it, nervousness coiling cold and sick like a finger touching the back of his throat. He fiddled with the pen, staring down at the paper. “My mom...her being gone, it’s just...put everything into perspective.” Jocelyn gone, probably taken by a genocidal madman. Watching the Forsaken nearly kill Jace. “What if something happens to me tomorrow, and I never said anything?”

   “Then you’re screwed, because we’re performing tomorrow _night_ ,” Eric reminded him. “So try not to get run over by a car before then, okay?”

   Simon laughed. “I’ll do my best.”

*

   It weighed on him, though. Not just his decision to finally sing _Crush_ – although that made him freeze up like a deer in headlights whenever he thought about it. But more pressing was the feeling that he was forgetting his mom. Letting her down by allowing himself to be distracted.

   _Maybe I was overreacting_ , he thought that night, when the lights were off and Clary was asleep on the other side of the room. _Maybe Hodge really_ doesn’t _have anything to do with Valentine anymore._ Who else could help him but Shadowhunters? And where else could he find Shadowhunters but the Institute?

   _I could talk to Dorothea again._ But she hadn’t really been willing to help, too afraid of the Clave. Ultimately the seeress hadn’t told him anything important, like where his mother might actually be found, and Simon doubted that a second conversation would be any more helpful.

   _There’s Luke._ But Luke was, if not quite friendly with Valentine’s people, not about to go up against them, either. What if he handed Simon over to Valentine in exchange for Jocelyn? Right now Luke seemed far less trustworthy than Hodge.

   Under the blankets in his camp bed, he scrolled through the contacts on his phone, feeling his heart clench a little more at each useless name. There weren’t even that many of them: it wasn’t as though Simon had a lot of friends outside of Clary and Lint. There were a few fast-food places whose numbers he’d saved, _because TOMO sushi is going to be able to face down the Shadowhunter Hitler_ –

   He paused, staring at a new entry in his contact book that he _knew_ he hadn’t made himself.

   _‘The Best Night of Your Life.’_

   _ExCUSE me?_

   After a moment’s consideration, he had to suppress a grin, because he had a pretty good idea of who would pick up the phone if he called. As quietly as possible, he slipped out of bed, past Clary and out of her room, and down the stairs to the kitchen.

   Sure enough, the voice that drawled, “Booty calls are between six pm and two am, you know,” was instantly familiar.

   “I wasn’t aware that you had business hours,” Simon grinned. “Would you like me to make an appointment?”

   “Oh, it’s you.” Far from sounding disappointed, Jace’s voice was suddenly amused. “What _are_ you doing calling me at this hour, mundane?”

   Simon shivered. _Mundane._ He wanted to hate the contemptuous implications of the word, but that right there was the real reason he didn’t want to hear it: the slow, lazy way Jace said it. Worse now, with his voice husky from sleep. “You did put your number in my phone,” he pointed out.

   “So I did,” Jace said agreeably. “But it’s – ” A moment while Jace presumably checked the time. “ – four in the morning. So – and I never thought these words would pass my lips – please tell me you’re on the run from Valentine. That’s the only thing I can think of worth waking up this early for.”

   “The only thing?” Simon asked lightly. “I’m disappointed in your imagination. You really need to read more.”

   Jace laughed, low and sultry. Simon wondered if he was doing it on purpose, or if Jace’s default setting was – well. _Best night of your life_.

   _Straight,_ he reminded himself.

   “I called because I was curious,” he found himself saying. “There was a mystery. It was keeping me up.”

   “Oh?”

   “Mm.” Simon ran his fingers over the kitchen counter, grinning. “There was a strange new number in my phone, and I couldn’t work out whose it was.”

   “What?” Jace asked, scandalised. “Was it not helpfully named, in such a way as to make it obvious who the number must belong to?”

   Simon bit back a laugh. “Not really,” he said mock-dismissively. “Until you picked up, I had no idea. I thought it might be Sebastian, actually.”

   There was a pause. “And who,” Jace drawled, “is _Sebastian_?”

   “A brief acquaintance from a con last Summer.” Simon paused, waiting for Jace to reply. When he didn’t, Simon grinned. “You know, a guy could almost think you were jealous,” he said lightly.

   “I beg your pardon, I was trying to work out what kind of con you and your friend could have run together.” Simon could almost hear his smirk. “You have a cute little face, I’m sure you find it very easy to convince naive grandmothers to part with their money in dodgy investment plans.”

   Simon raised his eyebrows. “What are you – ” Then he got it, and groaned. “Oh, Jace. _Jaaaace_.”

   In the quiet, with his phone pressed to his ear, Simon could have sworn he heard Jace’s breathing hitch, ever so slightly. “Yes?” he answered. Even with so short a word, it sounded like – almost as if – Jace was – breathless, his voice gone low and husky again, and Simon shivered, biting his lip.

   “You know, it’s unfair to tease,” he said raggedly. “You know what you look like. What you sound like. I have to think you’re doing it on purpose, and that’s just not cool. Teasing the guy who likes dick. That’s practically...” He couldn’t think of an appropriate word. All he could see was Jace in bed, with that body straight out of Simon’s fantasies and that quick, mocking mouth.

    On the other end of the phone, Jace chuckled. “Sorry,” he murmured, not sounding sorry at all. Simon’s fingers tightened on his phone, his mouth dry. “Was there something you wanted, really?”

   “Y – ” _You_ , Simon almost said. _God damn it all, I want you_. He swallowed hard. “Yyyyyes. Yes.” He sucked in a breath to steady himself. “I’m performing tomorrow night, at this place called The Vatican. I was wondering if you’d want to come?”

   “A date?” Jace sounded delighted, in the way of someone hearing a fantastic joke. “I knew it. You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

   “I want to do a lot more than kiss you.” It didn’t just slip out; he purred it, the way he did a similar line in one of his songs, as if his mouth were against a mike and not a phone. He froze, unable to believe he had spoken aloud, but before he could stammer out an apology he heard Jace’s breath catch, and with more than surprise; liquid heat slammed down Simon’s spine at the sound and he thought, _fuck it._

   “Does that get you off?” he asked huskily. “Do you like that, having the bi mundane panting after you? Do you like it, is it fun, wrapping me around your finger and watching me squirm?” He laughed softly, quietly, thrilled at Jace’s little hiss, the sound of a sharply indrawn breath. “You do, don’t you? You’re terrible. But you know, I think I like it too.” He closed his eyes, shutting out the kitchen so he could imagine Jace’s face, shocked and raw with unfamiliar hunger.

   “Because every time you tease me,” he murmured, “I imagine returning the favour. Not with words, like you do.” Jace was definitely breathing harder. So was Simon, for that matter. “But with my mouth, my mouth and my hands. Putting them all over you. Stringing you out until you’re shaking, until you can’t even breathe.” He purred. “That’s how _I_ tease, Jace. By bringing my partner to the edge over and over until they can’t remember their own name.” He smirked. “How does that sound to you, Shadowhunter?”

   “Like I should ask what it is you do,” Jace said breathlessly down the line.

   “Hm?” Simon ran a hand through his hair, breathing out shakily. He felt flushed and predatory.

   “Your performance.” Simon had forgotten all about it. “This isn’t some kind of sex club you’re taking me to, is it?”

   Simon laughed. “No, you idiot. Just the normal kind. I’m a singer, not some kind of sex worker.”

   “Pity,” Jace murmured. “But I’ll have you know, I don’t put out for anything less than a five star dinner.”

   The velvety darkness flared inside him, and Simon closed his eyes. “Liar,” he purred.

   For a moment, the other end of the phone was silent, and Simon wondered if he’d gone too far, crossed too many lines in the space of too few minutes.

   And then Jace breathed out shakily and Simon had to clutch at the counter to stay on his feet as the sound nearly sent him to his knees. _Fuck_ , he thought, dazed and amazed. No one – no one had ever hit him so hard before.

   “Not,” he managed, “that I am taking you to dinner. _Or_ on a date.” Best to get back to safe ground, he thought, before Jace really did freak out. Simon was amazed that he hadn’t already; could only assume that Jace’s quick tongue ( _don’t go there, Fray_ , he told himself) and sarcastic wit was keeping his head above the water. “Because that would be inappropriate.”

   Jace laughed. It sounded a little strained. “Right. Of course. So why _do_ you want me there?”

   “I was hoping we could talk. About Valentine,” Simon added quickly, before Jace could make some quip about how they were talking now. “And – and my mom.” The memory – the reminder – was like cold water waking him up. What the hell was he _doing_ , flirting while his mom was missing? And with a freaking straight guy, no less.

   Although he was beginning to have his doubts about that.

   He gripped his phone tightly. “I need to find her,” he said quietly, and his voice was far hoarser than it had been purring sex down the phone. This mattered a hell of a lot more.

   “You know something.” Jace was instantly serious, all hint of sultry heat wiped away as if the last few minutes had never happened. “Tell me.”

   Simon had no idea how Jace had guessed – how he knew – but he didn’t hesitate to tell the Shadowhunter what Clary had discovered. It felt like lancing a wound, laying out all his fears and evidence for Jace, for someone who knew what they were doing. Someone who had promised that they would find Jocelyn.

   The only one who had.

   “We’ll be there,” Jace said when Simon trailed off. The blond’s voice was cool and hard, like ice or crystal – like the material the seraph blades were made from, Simon thought. Immutable.

   “We?”

   “Alec and Isabelle will escort me into your den of iniquity,” Jace drawled, that damn smirk back and audible. “For my own safety, of course. No one expects you to be able to keep your hands off me.”

   At the mention of Alec, Simon’s throat went tight, and he reached up to touch his neck. There had been no bruising, no ache left after the healing rune, but he _remembered_ so clearly that there might as well have been. “You should leave Alec at home,” he said. “I doubt he’ll want to help out anyway.”

   “I know he took Simiel from you,” Jace said after a pause. “He had no right to do that. But – ”

   Simon thought about saying it, tried to shape the words on his tongue. _He nearly killed me._ _He put his fist half-through my throat and crushed my windpipe, and I nearly died._ But it was too unreal. The words tasted like a line from a bad script, and Simon felt like a bad actor, unable to find the way to deliver the words properly, so that they didn’t sound pathetic, humiliating, cringe worthy.

   It was bizarre that _he tried to kill me_ could feel cringe worthy, but it did.

   “Do you trust him?” he asked instead.

   “With my life,” Jace said instantly, and Simon wanted to laugh, wanted to ask _and what about with mine?_ “He’s my _parabatai_. I trust him beyond death itself.”

   “Mundie,” Simon reminded him. “I have no idea what that means.” Except that Jace sounded like he meant it. Simon wondered what it was like, to have that kind of unshakable faith in something, to sound so certain and sure when speaking of another person – or of _anything_.

   “ _Parabatai_ ,” said Jace. “It means a pair of warriors who fight together – who are closer than brothers.” He paused as if searching for the right words. “Alec is more than just my best friend.”

   For a second Simon didn’t get it – and then his eyes widened and he cursed silently, slapped his forehead with the base of his hand. Jesus Christ on a T-Rex, no wonder he’d been getting weird vibes off Jace!

   “I’m going to have to apologise to Alec,” he groaned, and for just a moment that overwhelmed the crushing disappointment. “Aren’t I? _Damn_ it, everything makes so much more sense now.”

   “What? Why?” Surprise, and then wariness. “What did you do?”

   Simon frowned at the phone, then held it back to his ear. “Maybe Shadowhunters go about things differently, but among mundanes it’s generally considered impolite to flirt with someone else’s boyfriend,” he said wryly, ignoring how his insides clenched at the words. _Of **course** he’s taken, you idiot – how could he not be? _

   “Who has a boyfriend?” Jace asked, bemused.

   Simon sighed. “I’m not going to tell your precious Clave,” he assured him. _Closer than brothers_ – _more than just my best friend_ – what was that, except a circumspect way of saying what Simon should have guessed from the start? “Don’t worry.”

   “You’re making even less sense than usual,” Jace told him.

   It was suddenly horribly, terribly sad that Jace couldn’t say it, couldn’t be honest even with someone from outside his closed-off, homophobic little world. That even in private conversation with someone he _knew_ couldn’t possibly judge him, Jace still felt the need to hide in the closet.

   _And he wonders why I have no desire to become a Shadowhunter._ Even Alec’s hatred was easier to understand and forgive, now, knowing this. What had been going on behind the scenes – had Alec felt threatened, jealous of Jace’s attention? _He called me an incubus,_ Simon remembered. At the time it hadn’t really registered as anything beyond an insult, but – incubi were sex demons, he knew that much. _An insult a Shadowhunter might use if you were screwing with their relationship_ , he figured.

_He still shouldn’t have nearly killed me, though._

   “I should get back to bed,” Simon said quietly. “It’s really late.” He rubbed his fingers over his eyes under his glasses. “Will you be able to find the place, tomorrow?”

   “I think you mean today,” Jace said blithely. Simon glanced at the clock and grinned despite himself. “To answer your question: yes, I know where Vatican is, and _yes_ , I know it’s not a sex club. Alas. It’s one of the places where Downworlders mix with mundanes. I’ve been there before on patrol.”

   Simon sighed. “Of course it is,” he muttered. “Great. Well, I’ll see you guys there, I guess. Night.”

   “Good night, Simon.”

*

   When he woke up again, there wasn’t any time to think about the night’s conversation. He and Clary had to get over to Eric’s for practise first thing, stopping only to grab a Starbucks coffee for everyone. After the last few days, and with another performance coming closer by the minute, Simon felt the splurge was justified.

   Not that anyone was grateful; they were too frantic. Like Pandemonium, Vatican had all-ages nights; unlike Pandemonium, if your face and clothes weren’t up to standard, Vatican’s bouncers didn’t let you in. It was as prestigious as an all-ages club could get, and a gateway drug – so to speak – to much more attention.

   They had to freaking _rock_ tonight.

*

   “We have to freaking _rock_ tonight,” Simon declared, back-stage minutes before they were due on. “Rock like Ben Grimm.”

   “Like Terra,” Clary offered, and Simon nodded because Teen Titans would always be the best thing about Cartoon Network, and screw the haters.

   “Like Terra,” he echoed. “Exactly. We have to be _awesome._ We will _be_ awesome.” He glared around the group. “I will hear no arguments.”

   “How much coffee did he have?” Matt asked Clary in a stage-whisper.

   Clary held up three fingers. Matt winced. Simon ignored them both.

   He was trying especially hard to ignore Clary, which was difficult because she was being stupidly beautiful again. She was going to be singing with them – just a little, a few lines in the opening song – and she had spent far longer than usual getting dressed because of it, in an effort “not to disappoint”. She was a vision in blue velvet and steel-capped boots, and the glint of amber from her silver thumb-ring kept flashing in the corner of Simon’s vision.

   How she thought she could disappoint anyone, Simon had no idea. 

   “You don’t need to worry,” Eric said reassuringly. “We’re good. We’ve practised, you’re warmed up, Clary” here he dipped his head, like a knight to a lady, “has deigned to ensure we are all properly dressed – ”

   “Don’t remind me,” Kirk muttered.

   “ – in short, _we’re ready_. So relax.” Eric grinned. “You weren’t even this nervous before Pandemonium, and we rocked that. We’ll do it again.”

   _I didn’t sing_ Crush _at Pandemonium_ , Simon thought, and tried to shove down the wave of icy panic the thought elicited. To distract himself he went and peered out at the stage, leaving the others to psyche themselves up.

   The sight that greeted him was a little intimidating. Vatican was larger than Pandemonium – _much_ larger. The ground floor was a huge square, with a stage at one end for bands, and a bar at a right angle to it. There were lights and smoke machines, two DJ platforms on perpendicular walls, and everything was black with gold accents. Hundreds of candles flickered in little niches in the walls behind plastic windows, and glittering chandeliers – Simon guessed they were glass instead of real crystal – flashed with neon fire every time they caught the strobe lights. Two more floors of wide balconies could be reached by spiralling metal staircases set against each wall, and they, like the ground floor, were heaving.

   So many people. And Tony Stark on a stick, the acoustics! The club’s manager had pointed out the dozens of powerful speakers that would project their music into every corner of the building, but still! It was a little terrifying, the thought of filling all this space with his voice.

   He hoped the fear wasn’t making him sweat. Clary had forced one of Eric’s shirts on him – a white, skin-tight thing with sleeves that ended just below his elbows. A sweeping design of wings, woven out of red and blue lines like veins and arteries, rose up his chest and spread over his arms, and honestly he would have been more comfortable with his Tony Stark shirt with the LED arc-reactor.

_‘You’re a rockstar now, Simon, you have to look the part.’_

_‘Tony Stark is totally a rockstar. And without any need to flash his nipples!’_

_‘Don’t be dramatic, I can’t see your – oh.’_

_‘...’_

_‘Just kidding, I really can’t see them. Stop fussing!’_

   Sometimes he thought about murdering Clary. Just occasionally. Although she had also stolen one of Matt’s black leather jackets for him, which was much more appropriate for a rockstar and hid his possibly-visible nipples, so he might let her live.

   He wondered if Jace was already somewhere in the crowd.

   He jumped when someone touched his elbow, but it was only Clary, pulling her headset microphone down over her hair. “Jumpy,” she commented, adjusting the mouthpiece.

   “Demons are real, I think I have a right to be jumpy.” Simon pulled away from the edge of the stage, back into the wings. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

   Clary glanced down at her outfit with a small smile. “Thanks.” Her blue velvet dress had been a gift from Jocelyn, bought on one of their mother-surrogate-daughter outings. Simon had never seen her wear it before – Clary was more of a shirt-and-jeans kind of person – but it suited her, made her look like a girl songs were written about. Wide straps led into silky fabric that hugged her upper body comfortably, without being overtly sexual, and then dissolved into a loose sapphire-coloured skirt that ended just below her knees. Net tights full of holes vanished into thick, round-toed boots covered in buckles, and long armwarmers – swirls of light brown leather over yellow silk – sleeved her arms from wrist almost to shoulder. She looked more like the band’s lead singer than Simon did, in his opinion.

   “Really,” he insisted, his heart in his throat. “You – you’re beautiful. You’re going to knock them dead.”

   She looked at him then, really _looked_ , and he wondered what she saw. An idiot in a too-tight shirt? Her best friend? Or someone that wasn’t quite human?

   “Thanks,” she said quietly, and then Kirk called for them to get their asses in gear and it was time to hit the stage.

*

   The moment he had his mike in hand Simon’s fears were swept away. He forgot about his ridiculous clothes, and the crowd, and Jace: Matt and Eric brought in the intro and Simon _howled_ “Get _DOWN!_ ” like he was on fire, like the words were tongues of flame flying from his mouth.

   He forgot himself.

   “ _I saw shawty dancin’ on the floor_ ,” he purred, and there, he saw Clary in the crowd, a sapphire jewel in the dark. “ _I’m kind of nervous to approach her though_...” He snapped close to Eric, gave the next words to him confidingly. “ _She’s so stylish, like a supermodel – Should I meet her?_ ”

   “ _Yes I think you oughta!_ ”

   It surged through him, the laughing rush of it, and they loved it – through the flash and spark of the lights he saw delighted, grinning faces and that just made it perfect, made it e _asy_ to lean forward and gift them his song, his voice, the thrill pounding through his veins.

“The needle _dropped_ ,  
My track was hot,  
We began to _rock_ ,  
Our eyes~ were locked –  
  
 _I love your song_ –  
Yeah, girl, sing along –  
She said _DJs make my heart ache_ ,  
I said _Baby watch the place shake like an earthquake!_ ”

   They smashed into the chorus, all four of them, and it was _glorious_ , wild and screaming like a free-fall and pulling the crowd in with them, down with them. To hell with coaxing the audience into the feel of a song; Simon _demanded_ their hearts, felt himself backed up by Eric’s drums and Matt’s wailing guitar, by Kirk’s near-magical keyboard and Clary’s presence in the crowd. He wanted to laugh because demons were real but in that moment, _in that moment_ Hell’s gates couldn’t have stood against them, against the force he had at his back and roaring like light out of his throat.

_“Drop, that, eight-oh-eight_

_The walls be, gin, to, shake_

_It’s too much for, the, club, to, take –_

_It’s-shakin’-like-an-earthquake!_

_“Dev, as, ta, tion from the sounds, I’m, mak, in’,_

_And there’s no, escape, ing from the bass – ”_

   “ _It’s-shakin’-like-an-earthquake!_ ” The other three hissed on their own.

   Simon smirked and purred into the mike –

_“Ten point oh on the rich-ter scale,_

_Shake-it-like-an-earthquake –_

_Move your tail!”_

   They did. Holy Angelina Jolie, did they ever. Lint had this place pounding like a heartbeat, and Simon wanted to laugh, wanted to crow with triumph because _they had done this,_ _HE_ did this, wrote the words and the music to infect the feet of the people who dared listen to them. It infected _him_ , a virus that made him move and a fever that made him howl, fierce and wild and so damned _alive_.

_“It's rumbling, crumbling –_

_All the way down~  
It's tumbling, fumbling, _

_You love-that-sound~”_

   He looked for her, found Clary’s eyes and she was grinning, half-laughing as she called into her mike, as her voice boomeranged through the club –

   “CAN YOU TURN UP THE BASS?”

_“Sorry girl I can’t hear in this place!”_

   “I HAVE A REQUEST THAT I’D LIKE TO MAKE!”

   Simon smirked. _“Well, what you wanna hear girl? Shake-like-an-earthquake?!”_

   Matt’s guitar wailed and they crashed through the chorus like a comet, trailing fire and showering sparks over the upturned faces; Vatican’s lights flashed like falling stars, blue-red-gold-pink-white, and Simon slashed his arm down and the others went quiet, almost dead – _“Yo! It’s not loud enough! Pump up the track!”_ – just Eric on the drums playing soft and silken for Clary singing alone, right there in the audience.

   “ _Boom, boom, you broke it down you broke it down –_

 _Now build it_ up _, build it_ up _, build it_ up!”

   The crowd went quiet as they realised that the band was focussed on something in their midst, that one of _them_ was singing. They looked for her, but Clary didn’t quail even as people started to realise. Simon was so proud, grinned so wide it hurt.  
   “ _Boom, boom, you broke it down you broke it down –_

 _So shake it_ up _, shake it_ up _, shake it_ up!

   “ _Boom, boom, you broke it down you broke it down,_

 _Now_ break _it up,_ break _it up,_ break _it up –_

_WOOOOOOOO!”_

   Lint jack-knifed into the chorus again, quick and clean like the cut of a blade – and Simon howled again, his voice braiding with the instruments into a flash of aural lightning, electric and screaming –

_“Shake it on dooooown – shake it on dooooown – shake it on dooooown – ”_

   And he fell to one knee with the force of the sound tearing out of him, clutching at the microphone in his hand like a lifeline, the only thing keeping him from going up in flames –

_“MOVE YOURSELF WHEN YOU HEAR THAT SOUND!”_

   The music cut off sharply, the last notes hanging in the air as Simon dared to look up, breathing hard. His heart stuttered as he took in the silence, the graveyard-quiet; Vatican’s lights still played over the walls and people, but he couldn’t hear a thing. Everyone was just staring.

   _Oh shit_ , he thought, panicking, _we fucked up – they hated it –_

   The crowd _roared_ , a crashing wave of sound that nearly knocked Simon over, and he couldn’t believe it, forgot to look confident and sexy like a rockstar in favour of just _gaping_ at them all – _Jesus Christ in high heels_ – all of them _cheering_ Lint, screaming approval, and he had never, ever expected this.

   It was freaking _amazing_. Exhilaration swept over him like a shot of coke, a fierce, golden joy that stretched his mouth into a stunned, triumphant grin. He laughed with it, shooting off a two-fingered salute from his temple as he shoved himself up to his feet and spread his arms to take in the whole stage.

   “Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted, sweeping a bow with the mike in hand. “Millennium Lint!”

   They laughed. They cheered. Simon saw Clary whooping in the crowd, and no – not even Hell could stand against this feeling in his chest.

   He grinned, and slammed them into the next song.

*

   When they called break, and Simon stumbled down off the stage soaked in sweat, Clary ran to him and he didn’t even think: he picked her up and spun her so that her skirts whirled and her hair trailed like fire.

   “Simon!” She shrieked, but not a bad shriek – she was laughing, laughing with him, “Put me _down_!”

   He obliged, grinning, and almost leaned in to kiss her. But he remembered, at the last moment, that despite the ecstatic rush burning through his veins they _weren’t_ actually together, and you didn’t kiss people without permission. Not unless you were some kind of dick. So he didn’t. “You were awesome!” he said instead, letting go of her hips. “With _Earthquake_ , seriously, I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

   She shook her head, hiding her grin. “You’d have just gotten Eric’s cousin,” she said dismissively, but he could see that she was pleased.

   “Are you kidding?” he asked, pressing his hand to his chest in mock-horror. “Tanya can’t sing! I wouldn’t let her anywhere _near_ my lyrics!”

   She laughed. “You’re such a music snob,” she said fondly. “You going to come backstage?”

   Where there were drinks and snacks waiting, Simon remembered, with a sudden pang of hunger. “In a minute,” he promised, turning to look out over the crowd. “Jace said he was going to be here. I want to try and find him before the next half.”

   Clary’s eyebrows shot up. “The _Shadowhunter_ Jace? He’s here?”

   “With his homicidal boyfriend,” Simon said absently, scanning the mass of dancing bodies. “If they actually showed up.”

   “Gay demon hunters,” Clary mused. “Sounds like Supernatural.”

   “Sam and Dean,” he agreed. He imagined Clary turning Jace into a picture, all sweeping lines and razor-sharp angles. But he wondered if even Clary could reduce Jace to something still, something colourless. He couldn’t even see _Jocelyn_ capturing Jace’s essence in something inanimate.

   “Well, I’m going to check in on the others,” Clary announced. “Make sure that Eric doesn’t suddenly decide you guys need pyrotechnics or something. Don’t spend too long looking, you need something to drink before you go back on.”

   He must have said something affirmative, because when he looked again she was already disappearing, a blue monarch butterfly in the half-light. And she was right, he really shouldn’t linger too long, he needed fluids and sugar for take two, so Simon glanced out over the club with every intention of following on Clary’s heels –

   And paused. His eyes caught on a familiar outline, the shape of a body he thought he recognised; lights flashed blue-white-red over a young man’s face looking his way and it wasn’t – no _way_ could it be –

   “Looking for me?”

   Simon blinked, and the dark-haired figure was gone. “Sorry?”

   He turned, and felt a twist of something nervous and hot at the sight of Jace standing so completely at ease on the edge of the crowd, Alec and Isabelle to either side of him, hands in his pockets as if there was nothing unusual about his being in a mundane club. Before he could stop himself Simon’s gaze flicked down and back up, taking in the black button-up shirt and the blue jeans, the glint of silver at Jace’s belt and wrists – and when he raised his eyes it was just a beat before Jace finished making the same sweep.

   Jace smirked, and Simon’s gut tightened.

   “ _Us_ ,” Isabelle corrected, swatting Jace lightly upside the back of his head, which, as well as being amusing, broke Jace’s expression into one of annoyance and let Simon breathe again. “Simon invited us too – didn’t you, Simon?” She was wearing the same ruby necklace she’d been wearing at Pandemonium; it shone like a bloody star against her throat, blazing against a slinky black halter-top. It took Simon a second to realise that her gold belt was actually her whip, coiled snugly around her hips.

   “I still don’t know why we accepted,” Alec muttered, low enough that Simon was surprised it was audible over the music. The jolt he felt at the sight of Alec was not nearly as pleasant as the one Jace elicited; he felt the memory of that crushing pain in his throat, the scream he hadn’t been able to scream caught in his burning lungs. But Alec didn’t look dangerous now. He looked strangely vulnerable in a pair of worn jeans and a dark blue t-shirt, like he didn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t hunting demons, and his eyes looked at everything but Simon. He looked – guilty. Ashamed.

   And angry, when he caught Simon looking. “What are you staring at?” he snapped.

   Simon held up his hands placatingly. “Nothing, sorry.” He felt a ribbon of heat and guilt curl around his throat, remembering the night before – Jace’s voice breathless and hoarse in his ear, almost panting as Simon, Simon told him...

   _I really do have to apologise_.

   “Do you guys want to come backstage?” he offered. “It’s kind of loud out here – and I need to get ready for the next half.”

   “Yes!” Isabelle grinned, sweeping forward and hooking Simon’s arm with hers. “I’ve never seen a mundane band before! I want to see _everything!_ ”

   “U-um, okay?” Simon managed, a little overwhelmed by having a very beautiful girl suddenly grab him. He wondered if it was a Shadowhunter thing, being so good-looking – Isabelle with her long dark hair and Amazonian body, Alec’s classically perfect face, and Jace, well –

   _Is TAKEN_.

   Simon took a breath, and pretended he was still on the stage. It was just another kind of performance. “Allow me,” he said grandly, and Isabelle played along with a laugh, allowing Simon to sweep her up the steps to the stage, the two boys presumably tagging along after them.

   “What’s it like?” Isabelle asked as they crossed the stage, putting her lips close to Simon’s ear to be heard over the music. “Singing like that?”

   “It’s _amazing_ ,” Simon said enthusiastically, forgetting to be flustered, and he was still trying to accurately put into words the rush of seeing people love your music when they reached the sound-proofed space behind the stage.

   “We were about to send out a search party – ” Eric began – and then did a double-take. “And who is this lovely lady?”

   Releasing Isabelle’s arm, Simon swept a bow, gesturing towards his band. “Isabelle Lightwood, may I introduce you to Eric Reynolds, our drummer; Matt Wheeler, electric guitar; and Kirk Bates, the man with the magic fingers.”

   Isabelle pinched the skirts of an imaginary dress and curtsied. “Charmed,” she declared.

   “Forgetting someone, are we?” Jace asked from behind him.

   “My apologies,” Simon grinned. “Alec Lightwood, Jace Wayland, meet Millennium Lint.”

   Alec looked distinctly _un_ charmed, but Jace was taking everything in as though he might be expected to do battle in the space, and needed to memorise the layout for tactical purposes.

   “But who _are_ they?” Matt asked, lounging on a stool and taking a bite out of a doughnut from the snack table.

   Simon hesitated. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. “Just friends,” he said vaguely.

   “We’re hanging out with Simon later,” Isabelle interjected smoothly, “and we thought we’d come see the show.” She beamed at Matt. “You’re very good, by the way.”

   A chorus of mingled thanks and mockery – mostly Kirk ragging on Matt’s ‘flailing hands’ – rang out, and Simon left them to it, moving to the snack table to grab one of the bottles of water. Warm water was best for a singer’s throat, preferably with something like lemon or honey in it; cold water was absolutely forbidden if he was going to be singing, _especially_ if there would be ‘screamer’ songs. Room temperature was fine, and helloooooo inane babble.

   At least it was all internal this time.

   He raised the bottle to his lips and almost wished it was something stronger.

   Clary slipped into the room, putting her phone away – her mom must have called – and Simon took the opportunity to call her over. “Clary, these are Isabelle, Alec, and Jace,” he said, pointing to each of them in turn, watching her eyes narrow intently, with that sharp focus he recognised as her desire for her sketchpad. “You three, this amazing woman is Clarissa Lewis, without whom we would still be a badly-dressed basement band.”

   Clary smiled – a little warily, Simon thought – and stepped forward to offer her hand. “Hey! Simon’s told me a lot about you.”

   Alec frowned at her like she was a magic trick he was trying to unravel; Isabelle waved from where she sat over by Eric. But it was Jace Clary had gone up to, Jace whom she had narrowed in on, and Simon wondered if that was because Jace was the most striking or if it was because of the way Simon had talked about him.

   Jace smiled. It was beautiful the way a knife is beautiful. “Really? He didn’t mention you at all.” He made no move to accept her hand; instead, without moving anything but his eyes, he managed to dismiss her entirely. “Simon, if you would?”

   Simon watched Clary’s face fall, not into surprised hurt but into anger. That was his girl. “Well, I _would_ , but as a feminist I believe that women do not need guys to punch rude guys in the face for them,” he told Jace mock-apologetically. “I firmly believe they can do it themselves.”

   Jace stared at him blankly; Clary snorted a laugh. “I’m not going to punch him.”

   “Are you sure? Because it has long been a dream of mine to see you knock someone out.” Simon put the bottle back on the table and shrugged out of his jacket. With the club packed full of bodies, it was too hot out there on the stage for extra layers. “It’s not you I want to talk to right now, anyway,” he told Jace, without looking at him. He didn’t want to think about Valentine now, and that was what Jace meant, wasn’t it? “Alec?”

   Alec blinked. He had very pretty blue eyes, Simon realised, when they weren’t shining with hate. Now they were surprised, and a little wary. “What?”

   “Can I talk to you for a sec?” Simon glanced at Clary, who had moved over to talk to Isabelle without a backwards glance at any of the guys, holding her head high. He suppressed a grin, preferring the amusement and pride to the sick knot of nerves in the pit of his stomach.

   “I...suppose?” Alec looked at Jace uncertainly; the blond’s expression was a stony mask. “All right.”

   More calmly than he felt, Simon led Alec into a corner, feeling like a death row inmate walking to his execution. Which would be ridiculously overdramatic, if Alec hadn’t nearly killed him two days ago.

   He steeled himself.

   “What is this about?” Alec asked lowly. “I said I was sorry about – about the other day.”

   There were hints of the stricken guilt Simon remembered from the aftermath around Alec’s eyes – but there was something harder, too, something brittle and sore that made Simon wonder just how sorry he really was. “Actually, no,” Simon said quietly. “That’s not – I wanted to apologise. I think there were a lot of mixed signals going around, and I only had a little bit of the picture – what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry for maybe-sorta getting in between you and Jace. I honestly had no idea about you two.”

   Alec’s face snapped from one shock to the next like a ball in a pinball machine. “What in Raziel’s name are you talking about?” he demanded, dropping his voice to a hiss.

   Yeah, Simon hated the Clave already. “I know about you two,” he said softly, trying not to let any sympathy or pity into his voice. He had a feeling that would make Alec take another swing at him. “But it’s fine,” he added hurriedly. “I swear, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’d never out someone – not even you,” he said jokingly. Which was a weird feeling, joking about the time a guy almost killed you. Simon was having all kinds of new experiences lately. 

   He felt the smile fade, and turned serious again. “I’m not going to make any kind of move on him, okay? I know he’s yours. So – can we not hate each other anymore?”

   Alec reeled back, a wild panic flaring around his eyes and Simon, shit, he had not meant to scare him, even Alec didn’t deserve that, but just then one of the club manager’s people poked their head around the door and yelled “Five minutes, guys!” and Simon didn’t have _time_.

   “I’m not going to tell!” he whispered helplessly, and paused just long enough to see Alec’s fear ease a little – a tiny bit – before Simon jogged back to his band to whip them ready.

   Clary turned and smiled at him, and Simon remembered that in half an hour he’d be singing _Crush_ , and this was all too much to deal with in a single night.

*

   The Shadowhunters went back to the dancefloor when Lint headed back to the stage. Simon’s grip on his bass was sweaty. He strummed a chord, his heart pounding.

   “You ready for this?” Kirk asked, walking past on his way to his place.

   “Not even close,” Simon answered, pasting a manically cheery smile on his face. Kirk snorted and kept walking.

   The music settled him, though, the way it always did. Sometimes he used only his voice, and sometimes his fingers ran his guitar pick over the strings alongside the lyrics, the sound of his bass braiding through and over and beneath the words like weaving on a loom. Both soothed him, eased the fluttering fear so he could slip free of his skin and forget about shame, embarrassment, self-consciousness. He laughed into the mike, purred and growled, playful and heated, stalked the stage like a hunting ground, and the club’s enthusiasm had not doused over the break. Lint had them dancing like maenads until Simon had to resist the urge to channel _Hocus Pocus_ ’s Winifred and cackle _“Dance! Dance till you dieeeeee!”_

   Because that would be weird. And not in a cool rockstar way, either.

   But then the clock struck twelve, and reality smacked him in the face because now – now was the moment.

   He glanced at his bandmates in the pause between songs, saw smiles and thumb-ups and encouragement. He looked for Clary and found her, and it was a lump of steel in his gut, her presence – or maybe just the fear, the fear of what he was about to, what he’d spent ten years _not_ doing. He’d promised not to out Alec but this was outing himself, and far more terrifying than announcing that actually, he liked guys too. He’d rather admit that to Clary than sing this next song.

   He tightened his grip on the mike. He was still going to sing it, though. Because he’d meant what he’d told Eric. Because Jocelyn was missing, and the world had turned out to be even more freaking terrifying than it already was, and Clary _mattered_.

   He thought, weirdly, of Jace. Of how Shadowhunters got up every morning and risked their lives to kill demons and monsters. Maybe it was insane, but it was also incredible, and brave, and Simon might not want to be a demon hunter, but he wouldn’t turn down being incredible and brave.

   Responding to some unconscious signal – maybe the relaxing of Simon’s shoulders – Kirk began to play.

   Simon took a breath, and sang.

 _“I hung up the phone tonight,_  
Something happened for the first time,  
Deep inside.  
It was a rush.  
What a rush.  
'Cause the possibility  
That you would ever feel the same way  
About me...  
It's just too much.  
Just too much.”

   He looked for Clary and found her. Her hair and dress shone. The club had hushed, the crowd responding to the slower, gentler music, to his voice gone soft and heartfelt.

  
  _“Why do I keep running from the truth?_  
All I ever think about is you.  
You got me hypnotized,  
So mesmerized,  
And I've just got to know –”

   His stomach roiled with adrenalin-nausea, and he felt like laughing, like crying, torn in two and all he could do, the only thing he could do was to keep singing, to let this crazy, insane, heart-stopping _thing_ out of him at last –

 _“Do you ever think,_  
When you're all alone,  
All that we could be?  
Where this thing could go?  
Am I crazy or falling in love?  
Is it real or just another crush?  
Do you catch a breath,  
When I look at you?  
Are you holding back,  
Like the way I do?  
'Cause I'm trying, trying to walk away.  
But I know this crush ain't going away~  
Going away~”

   People were gently waving back and forth, now, or slow dancing with each other. The frenzied energy had gone out of the room, but no one seemed to be complaining. Simon barely noticed; he swallowed hard, his mouth gone dry, and Clary was smiling and swaying, someone in charge of the lights had turned things white and blue and soft, and – was she smiling at him? For him? For _them?_

 _“Has it ever crossed your mind_  
When we're hanging,  
Spending time, girl, are we just friends?  
Is there more?  
Is there more?”

   Please let there be more. Let there be more nights with Clary’s arm wrapped around his waist; let there be more laughter; let her say she felt the same.

  
 _“See it's a chance we've gotta take,_  
'Cause I believe that we can make this  
Into something that'll last,  
Last –”

   Christ, teenagers weren’t supposed to say it, but he wanted to, he meant it and he wanted it –

   “ – _forever_ ,” he sang, and damn being afraid, damn all of it – he’d killed a Forsaken and run over bad guys and, and he _was_ brave; he sang it loudly, proudly, fiercely, calling it out so that the one word filled up everything, all the space and all their hearts, “ _Forever_ ~”

   Kirk carried them over into the chorus, and Simon gave it everything – every second of the last ten years, all the jokes and smiles and midnight feasts, all the movie marathons and the Pokémon battles; every time Clary had swept the hair out of her eyes and he’d longed to do it for her, every time she’d walked into a room being stupidly beautiful and knocked him breathless, every time she’d made him lie still and quiet to draw him. What it felt like, having all of Clary’s focus, all of her intensity, lasered in on you alone; how precious and proud it made him feel, to have earned that attention from her. He sang the jump in his heart when she called him Batman and the ache when he saw her crying, and how hard it was not to hold her, every second of every day, because he never wanted to let her go.

   He’d practised this song a thousand times, which was the only reason he managed to finish; he did so automatically, like muscle memory, letting the song trail gently away as the others softly brought the music to a close. Simon realised he was shaking, and made himself stop.

   There was applause, but Simon barely heard it. Eric stepped up to announce the end of their performance, to say goodnight on Millennium’s behalf, but Simon paid no attention. He felt hollow and weak, as if some vital support structure had been take away – as if someone had removed his skeleton. Some core part of him had been taken out and shown to the world, something raw and vulnerable, and the only important thing, suddenly, was knowing what Clary thought of it.

   He abandoned Eric, Matt, Kirk; forgot his bass on its stand. There was a fiery fish-hook embedded in his ribcage, pulling him down the steps from the stage to the main floor. Pulling him hard; he stumbled on the last step, and someone caught him.

   “Here, you’re a Shadowhunter, ain’t cha?”

   “What?” Simon was already withdrawing his arm, looking for Clary’s red hair.

   A green finger jabbed at his arm, and Simon did a double-take, looking up into a green hawkish face with an octopus-like beak. “That there’s a rune, ain’t it? Or was,” the strange personage allowed.

   Simon glanced down. Sure enough, the silvery scar from the invisibility rune at Dorothea’s was visible on his forearm. “Um. Yes?” he said weakly.

   A DJ started up the music again. It was hard to tell if the creature was smiling, because Simon didn’t know how a beak looked when it was smiling. But the green person looked pleased. “Right then.” S/he extended a black-and-gilt card, which Simon took gingerly. “Y’all should come perform.”

   Simon couldn’t make out the writing on the card, not with the club’s strobe lights. “Um, I feel like I should point out that I’m the only Shadowhunter? I mean – the others, they’re all mundanes.” He had no idea what was going on, but if this person wanted a Shadowhunter, it seemed a safe bet that normal mundanes were not going to be able to handle it.

   But the creature waved her/his hand – s/he only had four fingers – dismissively. “We’ll spell ‘em to think t’was all a dream, lovie, no fear. Won’t hurt ‘em none. I’ll see y’all there!”

   “Wait!” Simon protested. “What exactly are you – ” But with a maybe-smile and a cheerful wave, the personage was gone.

   Simon was still peering at the card, trying to make out the glittery text on it, when Clary’s voice broke through his reverie. “What’s that?”

   He looked up at her and just – just forgot how to breathe. The bizarre interlude with the beaked person had distracted him, but now Clary was _here_ , standing in front of him and smiling, and holy smokes, Batman – he’d sung it. She _knew_.

   “I don’t actually know,” he said hoarsely. “Some – person just came up and gave it to me. I think they liked the band.” He shoved it in his pocket. There were baby pterodactyls in his stomach, so that he didn’t even try to sound casual when he asked “Did you like the song?”

   She was smiling. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

   “It’s great,” she answered, and Simon’s heart leapt into his throat and fingertips, his mouth was a desert, his hair ached. “Whoever you sang it for – she’s really lucky, Simon.”

   For a second, it simply didn’t process. The words ran round and round his head as uselessly as fragments of a dead language.

   “It – it was for you,” he said, swallowing. Confused, more than anything else; a numb, cool kind of bafflement, because how could she not realise, not know?

   He saw his own puzzlement in Clary’s face. For a second that was all there was, like a flower caught in crystal – still and eternal, for just one second, and Simon’s breath caught in his chest.

   And then she bit her lip, and her expression morphed into something – something guilty and a little panicked, and that was it, game over, crash and burn, _BOOM, baby!_

   “Simon,” she pleaded as he stepped away, “Simon, wait a second,” but he really, really didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to talk about it; he wasn’t mad, didn’t blame her, not even seconds after this crushing lead weight had been dropped on his chest, but – he didn’t want to talk.

   He shoved his way blindly through the crowd; the pull to Clary had turned into a push, two magnets pressed together South to South and now propelled apart. Strangers recognised him, shouted incomprehensible greetings over the music and offers of drinks. Simon smiled and shook his head and didn’t even try to speak. His lungs were full of stone.

   He found one of the service entrances and pushed it open, ignoring the warning that declared it linked to the fire alarm. Sure enough no sirens rang out, and he closed it behind him, carefully, conscientiously, and then he was standing in the lot behind Vatican where vans and trucks delivered snacks and alcohol and he did not know what he was doing.

   He sat down on the cement steps and put his hands in his hair. He felt crushed – not _depressed, burst-into-tears_ crushed, but literally bent and broken under some huge weight pressing on his chest, something that snapped his ribs like twigs and drove a shard of bone into his heart. Beneath that he was numb. He was not crying. It didn’t occur to him that he should be. It didn’t occur to him that tears would help.

   It felt like hours but was, the logical, dispassionate part of him noted, probably only minutes later that he heard the door open behind him. Something leapt inside him, sparking excited warmth through the numb cold – but when he turned to look it wasn’t Clary, but Jace, standing still and silent in the doorway, his face unreadable.

   Disappointed, Simon looked straight ahead again, resting his forearms on his thighs because clutching his hair seemed pathetic with an audience.

   Noiselessly, Jace came and sat beside him on the steps. He didn’t come close enough that Simon would feel guilty about Alec, didn’t try to touch Simon at all, just wordlessly reached into his pocket, pulled out a little roll of black velvet, and held it out to Simon.

   Simon took it, instantly feeling that there was something solid and hard beneath the soft fabric. The velvet whispered against his fingertips as he unwrapped it, and the moment he touched the thing – a half-instant before he saw it – he recognised it.

   “Simiel,” he murmured, spilling it into his hand – and it snapped out as he closed his fingers around it, sharp and deadly like the pain in his chest. Except that it didn’t feel terminal, with the crystal hilt smooth and cool against his palm. The little blade felt like a breath of fresh air and reason: nobody ever died of heartbreak. This was bad now, but not as bad as standing his ground against the Ravener, not as bad as his mom being missing. And...

_This, too, will pass._

   “Thanks,” he said quietly.

   “It belongs to you.” Jace didn’t look at him, but there was an intensity to his voice that Simon didn’t know what to do with. “Alec had no right to take it.”

   “I thought I was supposed to give it back.” Simon – _did_ something, willed it so, and the blade snicked back into the hilt, once more just a silvery dowel. “I thought you’d only lent it to me.”

   In the corner of his eye, Jace shook his head. “It’s yours,” he said again.

   Simon nodded absently. “Can I – I’d like to be alone for a while,” he said lamely.

   “All right.” Without protest, Jace unfolded to his feet. “Don’t pout too long,” he added lightly. “There’s always more girls. More fish in the sea, isn’t that what you mundanes say?”

   _There’s always more girls._

   “Go away, Jace,” Simon said tiredly. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry.

   He didn’t watch as Jace left.

   Some time later his phone vibrated in his pocket. Simon ignored it. But by the third ignored text he was self-aware enough to realise he was acting pathetically, stupidly like a dumb teenager, and he pulled out his mobile. All three texts were from Clary. The first two were apologies-cum-pleas to talk; the third wanted to know if he was coming back, or if Eric should take Simon’s bass home with him.

   _Tell him 2 take it_ , Simon answered. _+, no sorries. No1’s fault._

   _U coming home wit us?_ She sent back a moment later.

   Simon thought of sleeping in the same room as Clary after this. Then he wondered whether he had any other options, because teenage pique and angst was all very well, until you said ‘no’ to your only refuge and ended up staying awake all night in some 24 hour cafe that served breakfast at midnight with truly atrocious coffee.

_Don’t no. When u guys leaving?_

_Not 4 a while. Eric talking wit the manager + Matt found a girl. !_

   Despite the flicker of jealousy, Simon laughed at that exclamation mark. _Then I’ll let u no?_

   _Kk. x_

Simon stared at the little x for minutes before he put his phone away.

   He was playing with Simiel, tossing the crystal tube from hand to hand mindlessly when the door creaked open again behind him.

   “Jace says you’ve sulked long enough and it’s time to go,” Isabelle declared. Her stiletto boots clicked on the concrete as she walked over to him. “And by the way – ”

   She did not suddenly tense – Simon had the unexpected thought that freezing up was a bad way for a warrior to react to surprises – but he felt her playfulness change into something sharp and shocked.

   “Where did you get that?” she demanded.

   He glanced up at her, wary after Alec’s reaction to the seraph blade the other day. But unlike her brother Isabelle looked more incredulous than angry, so he answered simply, “Jace.”

   Isabelle’s eyes narrowed, and she dropped onto the step beside him. “I think I’d rather you’d stolen it,” she said darkly. “Tell me everything.”

   It was not a request. It was also a distraction from pretty much everything, so Simon obeyed her, quickly running down how Jace had handed him the blade outside Simon’s home. When he told her its name, she twitched.

   “I’m going to take a wild guess,” she said to no one in particular when he’d finished, “and say that Jace didn’t tell you what it meant.”

   “What what meant?”

   Isabelle bit her lip. For a moment Simon was reminded sharply of his mother, and of Clary. “I don’t know if I should tell you.” She did not say it the way another teenage girl would; she wasn’t being coy, wasn’t not-so-secretly eager to spill all the gossip. Her voice was wary, the voice of someone facing down an unknown threat.

   Remembering Alec, Simon was very sure he did not want Isabelle to decide he was a threat. But “Alec nearly killed me over it,” he said, more harshly than he’d meant (although really, how gentle was it possible to be, saying those words?) “At the Institute. When he found out I had it. If that’s going to be a common reaction then I’d like to know so I can stop flashing it around.”

   Disturbingly, Isabelle did not seem surprised to hear of her brother’s reaction. The wary twist of her mouth became tinged with something unhappy.

   “Seraph blades are really important to Shadowhunters,” she said quietly. “In the really old days, you weren’t counted a Shadowhunter at all until you killed a demon or rogue Downworlder with a seraph blade. And once you did – do – once you’ve used a seraph blade to kill, it’s yours. Bonded to you. Forever. No one else can touch it – unless you forge _phask_ _ō_ with them.”

   “Pha-what?”

   “It means ‘bond’. There’s just three bonds that allow for sharing – or gifting – a seraph blade. Ready?

“ ‘ _Halikask_ _ō_ _for duty to Clave and Crown,_

_Daiosask_ _ō_ _for when blood is raining down,_

_Armask_ _ō_ _to win a wedding gown.’_

   “They’re all different. _Halikask_ _ō_ – we don’t have kings anymore, of course, but it’s the bond between us and the Clave. Or, between all of us, really. It’s the _phask_ _ō_ between us and our teachers, who give us our first seraph blades; it’s what allows us to request new ones from any Institute in the world, whenever we need to restock.” Isabelle shot him a sharp look. “ _Halikask_ _ō_ is for unnamed, unbonded blades.

   “ _Daiosask_ _ō_ is the battle-bond. It means we can lend our seraph blades to each other while in a fight; if someone is unarmed, anyone else can toss them a seraph sword. It’s for named, bonded blades, and after the fight you have to give them back, if the original wielder is still alive.

   “Aaaand...”

   “My heart is sinking already,” Simon told the steps.

   Isabelle looked grim. “And, _armask_ _ō_. Which is for named, _unbonded_ blades. And they're not returned, because an _armask_ _ō_ blade is a gift to a lover.”

   Simon blinked. “Say that again,” he ordered. “I thought you said - just say it again.”

   “Or, you know, a loved one,” Isabelle added sweetly. “I could give one to Alec.”

   “I'm not Jace's brother,” Simon snapped. “ _Or_ his lover,” he added when Isabelle's eyes widened, as if that had been an accidental confession. “I mean – Jesus, how does that even _work?_ ”

   “Well, when daddy loves papa _very much_ –”

   “I meant the armas-thing,” Simon snapped.

   Isabelle sighed. “It's an old, old tradition,” she said slowly. “Doesn't get used much anymore, even though it's _so_ romantic.” She said this somewhat sarcastically. “You name an unbonded blade, something as close to the name of your One True Love as possible – ”

   _Simiel_ , Simon thought, sick dread pooling in his stomach. _Simon. Simiel – Simon. Jesus Christ Superstar._

   “ - and then you give it to them.” She paused. “And then you get married.”

* * *

 

 NOTES

 

The songs Millennium Lint sing in this chapter are;

Earthquake – Family Force 5

Crush – David Archuleta

References;

Benn Grimm is the real name of the Thing, a member of the Fantastic Four.

Terra is a character from the tv show Teen Titans. Which is awesome.

 


	11. Chapter 11

   “You _WHAT?_ ” Simon shouted. He shoved up onto his feet. “Are you – please tell me you’re not being serious!” _This is a joke. Jace did not propose to me. The crazy demon hunter did not PROPOSE TO ME after three days of watching me sleep!_

   “It’s a declaration of intention,” Isabelle said, as if he hadn’t spoken – as if he wasn’t shouting, wasn’t freaking the _fuck_ out, because _what?_ “An announcement of the other person’s feelings. It’s staking a claim, and _yes_ , if the couple are already together it can be a, a proposal. But Jace probably didn’t mean it like that because you two don’t know each other,” she concluded hastily.

   “Oh, no, of course not,” Simon snapped. “We can’t get married, we’ve only known each other a few days, but he can _stake a claim on me?_ Is he, what, are we secret boyfriends now? Because _someone should have freaking told me!_ ”

   Isabelle hesitated.

   Simon groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “Oh my God, I’m getting a shotgun wedding with a demon hunter,” he said weakly. “Mom is going to kill me.” Belatedly, he thought of Alec. “What about your brother?” No wonder Alec had gone so crazy when he discovered Simiel; the little blade must have struck him right through the heart.

   Isabelle looked puzzled. “Well, he’s Jace’s _parabatai_ , so they can use each other’s seraph blades...” she said slowly. “Just like they can use runes that other Shadowhunters can’t...” She clearly didn’t understand why he’d brought Alec up.

   “Doesn’t it matter?” Simon demanded. “That, that Jace is handing out these, these _love knives_ even though he has Alec?”

   She frowned. “I don’t see why it should.”

   “I’m getting a shotgun wedding with a _polyamorous_ demon hunter,” Simon wailed. Of course. Of freaking _course!_ Because his life would never reach a stable level of sanity _ever again_. “What am I supposed to _do?_ ”

   “Nothing,” Isabelle said firmly. “Absolutely _nothing._ ” She glared fiercely at him, dismissing and ignoring his wailing as the ravings of a lunatic. “Look, Jace clearly doesn’t expect a response from you. As far as he knows, you don’t know what Simiel means. He’s just...I don’t know what he’s doing, putting up a big _hands off_ sign, maybe – ”

   “ _Why?_ ”

   “How should I know?” Isabelle snapped. “Maybe it’s his idea of a joke, or he thinks it’ll keep you safe somehow. Maybe he wants to get in your pants. Maybe he actually _likes_ you. But whichever it is, you don’t need to know. You can just keep pretending that you _don’t_ know.”

   “Really?” Simon drawled. “And there’s nothing else I need to know? Is it safe to borrow toothbrushes, or are there seraph toothbrushes named Zachariah that will have me waking up married in the suburbs if I touch them?”

   “Don’t be ridiculous,” Isabelle said dismissively.

   “Because _that’s_ ridiculous,” Simon nodded. “I’ll make a note. No holy toothbrushes. Just _wedding-swords_.” Which would actually be incredibly cool, if it hadn’t accidentally _gotten him engaged_.

   Isabelle rolled her eyes and got to her feet. “Look, I told you because I didn’t think it was fair that you didn’t know. But if you ask me, you should just ignore it.”

   “Ignore my fiancé? That seems a little harsh. Besides, how can we discuss wedding invites if we’re not talking?”

   “You’re not getting married!” Isabelle snapped. She was far more intimidating when she was standing up. “Stop being intentionally stupid! By the Angel, I shouldn’t have told you.”

   “No – no, you shouldn’t have _had_ to,” Simon corrected angrily. “ _Jace_ should have told me.”

   Isabelle threw up her hands. “So, what? You want to go in there,” she pointed at the door, “and confront him? What are you going to say, Simon? What do you want _him_ to say? Either he doesn’t mean it, in which case you’ll only embarrass everyone, or,” She stepped forward and jabbed her fingernail into his chest sharply, “or he _does_ mean it, and you storming in there will only humiliate and hurt him, and I _will not_ let you hurt my brother, _do you understand me?_ ”

   “Alec?” Simon gulped. _Would_ it hurt Alec, dragging all this out into the open? Probably. If it meant something, then – probably.

   But “No, _Jace_ ,” she snapped. “Jace is my brother too, you _athumos_ , he’s lived with us since he was ten years old. My parents _raised_ him. He’s _ours_.”

   “You Shadowhunters are big on staking claims on people, aren’t you?” Simon sighed and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “Sorry. I didn’t mean – sorry.” He looked at her. “Do you really think I should pretend...?”

   She was already nodding. “ _Yes_ ,” she said fiercely. “It’s – whatever he’s up to, we’ll find out eventually. When he’s ready. Pushing him – Jace...”

   Simon could imagine it: back Jace up against a wall and all that golden power would strike out like lightning. But only if this thing with Simiel was real, instead of just some bizarre joke. Sure, there was... _something_ there. Plenty of sexual tension, for starters. But a sexy spark did not equal _marriage_ , even if Shadowhunters apparently saw nothing wrong with polyamory (which, kudos to them, Simon would be impressed and confused by such forward thinking in a homophobic society if it hadn’t potentially thrown him into _a threesome with Alec_ ) _or_ the idea of Jace making moves on someone else when he already had a boyfriend.

   No. It had to be a joke. And if it wasn’t – if it wasn’t then Jace wasn’t just arrogant, he was an asshole, because polyamory or no, Alec clearly would not be on board with Jace’s plan, _was not_ on board if he’d already figured it out. Which – he might have, as evidenced by the freak out over Simiel.

   God, _Alec_. What the hell was _he_ feeling about this mess?

   “All right,” Simon said finally. He didn’t like this one _tiny freaking bit_ , but he didn’t seem to have much of a choice. He couldn’t imagine actually confronting Jace about this – _so I hear you want to marry me_ ; NO – and without the Shadowhunters, Simon had no idea how to start looking for his mom. “Fine. We’ll pretend Jace is not looking to tap this, and move on with our lives.”

   Isabelle was clearly relieved. “ _Thank_ you,” she said fervently. “Now come on. We really do have to get going.”

   “Going? Where are we going?” Simon asked as he followed her through the door. “Hello? Isabelle? _Where are we going?_ ”

*

   “The Silent City,” Jace announced when they found him. “If you don’t behave.”

   “Pardon?” Simon handed his student ID and his ticket to the woman running Vatican’s cloakroom; she examined both, then took his ticket and went to get his bag for him. “Isn’t that in Idris?”

   Alec laughed, sharp and mocking. “That’s the _Glass_ City.”

   “We’re not really going to the Silent City,” Isabelle said reassuringly, which was useless because Simon didn’t know why reassurance was supposed to be necessary. “We’re going home.”

   “To the Institute,” Simon clarified. His stomach twisted. _Where Hodge is._

   “That’s where we live, yes,” Jace drawled. “We’ve put so much work into the decorating, it would be a shame to move elsewhere.”

   “And you’re particularly proud of the wainscoting, right?” Simon parried without looking at him. He smiled and thanked the employee who brought back his rucksack, swinging it over his shoulder with a sense of relief. The last few days had left him warier of life, the universe, and everything, which was why he’d brought his bag and belongings with him instead of leaving them at Clary’s. What if something crazy happened and he had to make a run for it?  

   “No, that was Maryse,” Jace corrected. “ _I_ picked the curtains.”

   He sounded so smug about it that Simon had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. But he didn’t want to encourage Jace any further. His hand slipped into his pocket, fingers curling around the little velvet package without thinking about it. “Why are we going to the Institute, and how long are we going to be?”

   “We’re going because that’s where the Silent Brothers are sending someone to meet you,” Jace said absently as they made their way to the club’s exit. “And as for how long; you’re staying there.”

   Simon stopped dead. “No.”

   “Not this again,” Alec muttered.

   Simon ignored him. He’d avoided looking directly at Jace since Isabelle’s revelation but now he had eyes for noone else, nothing else. “Did he tell you how he knew about the Cup?”

   Jace met his eyes squarely, without flinching, but it was Isabelle who answered. “The Clave sent a message to all the Institutes, telling them to watch for the Cup. There’s rumours running through the Downworld that that’s what Valentine is after.”

   “That’s crap and you know it,” Simon snapped without looking away from Jace. “You _know it_. You’re telling me that the Clave _knows_ Valentine is alive? Already? How? He has my mom and _we_ don’t even know if he’s alive, or if someone’s just using his name!” He swallowed. “And if the Clave knows, shouldn’t they be sending more Shadowhunters to come deal with him? Shouldn’t there be a freaking _army_ descending on New York?”

   “They’re coming,” Jace said quietly. “It takes time to get them here, Simon.”

   “ _Bullshit_.” Simon glanced between Alec and his sister. “Do you two buy this too?” he demanded.

   “I’ve known Hodge my entire life,” Alec said simply. “Whoever he was in the past, he’s not that person anymore. He would never do anything to hurt us.”

   “You forgave your mother for being in the Circle,” Isabelle reminded him, and he wondered how she knew that, wondered who had told her. “Why not Hodge?”

   “I _know_ my mom,” Simon snapped. “I don’t know him. I don’t trust him.”

   “But we do,” Jace said, and Simon was caught by the intensity behind the words. “Can you trust _us?_ ”

   Simon paused and just... _looked_ at him. He knew what his mom would expect him to say, what he _should_ say: _no, I don’t, I barely know you, ever since I met you my life’s gone to hell._ But the words were copper masquerading as gold, false and bloody in his mouth: he _did_ trust Jace. Simon had known him for a handful of days and trusted him as much as he did Clary – more, maybe, because where Clary might _want_ to save Simon from a Ravener, or a Forsaken, she didn’t have the ability to actually do it. It wasn’t a reflection on her, just a fact of life: in this mess with Valentine, it was Jace Simon trusted to have his back.

   When had he started seeing Jace as someone holding the safety-net under this tight-rope? There were so many moments, now that he thought about it: Jace standing beside him when he explored the emptied apartment; Jace urging him to stay at the Institute, wild for Simon’s safety; Jace pressing a weapon into his hand as if to say _you’re strong, you can do this_.

   Except that wasn’t what the blade had meant at all, was it? And Jace hadn’t told him. By all rights Simon shouldn’t trust Jace as far as he could throw him; what other secrets might he be keeping? What else was Simon not being told?

   And yet logic had no say in it. _He trusted Jace_. It was stupid and instinctive and as certain as gravity, and a little part of him hated it because Simiel was a burning weight in his pocket, a blazing warning that he _shouldn’t_ trust Jace. Simon was going to get burned, and he knew it, and he still found himself saying “Yeah, I do.”

   And then wanted to kick himself, because he hadn’t meant to say that at all. It was – too much, too honest. Baring too much of himself.

   _Especially_ now that he knew what Simiel meant.

   “Good,” Jace said cheerfully; whatever had been glittering at the back of his eyes vanished, and his voice turned light. “Then walk a little faster – we’re off to find Valentine.”

   Simon missed his step and stumbled; if Isabelle hadn’t quickly grabbed his arm he would have fallen. “How the hell are we going to do that?!”

   Alec looked alarmed. “Jace, you can’t be serious,” he protested.

   “We don’t even know where to look,” Isabelle added, which Simon thought was _really not the point._

   “Of course we do,” Jace said, grinning. They were outside by now; the air was as thick and humid as a hothouse, a real New York summer night (or incredibly early morning; Simon didn’t want to even think about what time it was), the kind you could taste, all melting tarmac and spice and hot stone. The curve of Jace’s mouth blended right into it, neon and sharp. He half-turned, and before Simon could react the blond pressed two fingers to his temple, so gently that Simon didn’t know what to do with it. “Everything we need to know is locked up in Simon’s head.”

   Simon pulled away from the touch. “If I knew where Valentine was I’d tell you,” he said sharply, his heart pounding. “I’d have told you the second my mom went missing.”

   “Not if you don’t know you know.” Isabelle’s expression had gone thoughtful. “But how are we going to – ” She froze, and glanced at Jace with shock in her eyes. “You didn’t say – but you hate the Silent Brothers!”

   “I don’t hate them,” Jace said calmly. “I’m afraid of them. It’s not the same thing.”

   Alarm bells started shrieking in the back of Simon’s mind. “I’m fairly certain I don’t want to meet anything you’re scared of,” he said warily.

   “Not even if they can help us find your mother?” Jace’s eyes were glittering again. “The Silent Brothers can help you retrieve your memories.”

   “What memories?” Simon demanded, throwing up his hands. “I don’t know anything about Valentine! Until that talk in the library I’d never even heard his name!”

   “ _That you remember_.”

   “Jace is right,” Alec said suddenly, taking them all by surprise. “You’re born with the Sight, it doesn’t just spontaneously manifest. If you can see us, then you should have been seeing things your entire life.”

   “But I haven’t,” Simon said slowly. “What does that mean?”

   “It _means_ ,” Jace said – not triumphantly, as Simon would have expected, but gently, “that for some reason, there are things you’ve forgotten. Someone’s hidden secrets in your mind, secrets you can’t see. Don’t you want to know the truth of your own life?”

   “I – yeah, of course.” Simon wasn’t sure he bought the idea that there was some hidden treasure map in his head, but if there was the slightest chance that Jace was right... If there was some clue that could lead them to Valentine, to his mom, then Simon was going to jump on it. “But I don’t understand how you think I’m suddenly going to remember.”

   “You’re not,” Jace said patiently. “The Silent Brothers will help. I already said that.”

   Simon counted to ten silently. “Once again: _I am not a Shadowhunter._ I don’t know who the Silent Brothers are.” _You arrogant ass_ , he thought but didn’t say. He didn’t believe for one minute that Jace didn’t enjoy flaunting knowledge that Simon didn’t have.

   “They’re librarians,” Jace said, suddenly vague, and Simon’s eyes sharpened at the way Isabelle and Alec exchanged glances.

   “Okay,” he said calmly. “Now tell me who they _really_ are.”

   “They’re really creepy,” Isabelle said cheerfully.

   “They are _not_ ,” Alec protested. “They make incredible sacrifices to serve the way they do – ”

   Isabelle held up her hand to cut him off. “Still creepy.” She turned to Simon. “They’re Nephilim. Kind of like Shadowhunters, but – not like us. They _mutilate_ themselves.”

   “They use some of the most powerful runes in existence to strengthen their minds,” Alec corrected.

   “And twist up their bodies.”

   “They deserve respect, Isabelle!”

   “They _need_ some serious fashion advice. And maybe masks.”

   “ _Guys!_ ” Simon half-yelled. “Could someone just answer my question?”

   Jace, who had been following the argument with amusement, looked at him. “Their powers are of the mind, the way ours are of the body,” he explained. “If you have hidden memories, they’ll find them.”

   “So what you’re saying is, they read minds,” Simon summarised. “That doesn’t sound so bad. I’d rather have someone mess around inside my head than chop it off.”

   “Then you’re an idiot,” Jace told him. “They can take a man’s mind apart like you’d peel a banana.”

   “What about a woman’s mind?” Isabelle asked frostily.

   “A woman’s mind is too dangerous a place even for the Silent Brothers,” Jace replied archly. “They wouldn’t even try.”

   “That’s what I thought you meant.”

   Simon bit down on his angry response to being insulted. “ _You’re_ the idiot,” he said coldly, ignoring their banter. “It’s still better than dying. As long as there’s life, there’s hope, isn’t there? Maybe someone could fix your mind, or maybe you’d just get better eventually. Anything could happen. But if you’re dead, you’re dead.”

   Jace opened his mouth to answer – and paused, frowning.

   Simon didn’t bother waiting for him to think up a comeback. “But this could help find my mom?”

   “Yes,” Alec answered. “Potentially.”

   Simon chewed his lip. _Potentially_ was better than what he had at the moment – which was nothing. They’d almost reached the subway, and Simon pulled out his phone and typed a text to Clary as they approached it; _Going with Jace, not coming back 2nite. Call u l8r._ “All right then, fine. I’ll let your freaky mind-readers inside my head.”

   “Great,” Isabelle said cheerfully. She slung her arm around Simon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. It won’t even hurt... _Much_.”

   Simon glared at her, and she laughed.

   “I’m still not staying at the Institute,” he warned as his phone vibrated. _Kk. All clear/red alert?_ “I’ll meet these Silent guys tonight, but that’s it. I’m going back to Clary’s in the morning.”

   _Car keys/dalek_ he texted back.

   Isabelle peered over his shoulder. “What’s a dalek?” she asked curiously. “And why is it a red alert?”

   “One of the worst demons in the universe,” he said seriously, unable to resist. “And it’s a safecall.”

   She looked at him blankly.

   “You know – like a safeword?” Still nothing. “It’s a code you arrange with your friends when you go out with someone. So they know if you’re okay or not. Something you can use in a phone call even if someone’s listening in – or text to them, whichever.”

   “You’re arranging a red alert warning for going out with _us?_ ” Jace asked, scandalised. “I thought you trusted us.”

   “I do!” Simon protested. “But it’s – it’s automatic by now,” he said lamely. The truth was that Jocelyn had drummed it into him, not when he started going on dates, but when he got old enough that school friends started inviting him home. He’d been the only six year old in his class with a mobile phone, so he could always call if something was wrong – and Jocelyn could always get hold of him.

   He’d always thought her a little paranoid, but it made a painful amount of sense now. She must have worried that something like this might happen. _And when it did, it was the one time I forgot my phone..._

   “Anyway, you’ve seen them now. I have to pick new ones,” he muttered. _Scratch that – bad dreams/coffee_ , he sent, and quickly tucked his phone away before someone could steal another glance.

   “Hm. Well, come along, children,” Jace said airily, leading them down into the subway station. “Wouldn’t want to annoy the Brothers by being late.”

*

   In the time since he’d left it, the Institute had taken on Gothic proportions in Simon’s mind, complete with permanent gloom and bats in the belfry. But even in the dark, at night, it just looked like a church – impressively large, maybe, but hardly horror-movie-set material. It was the place you ran to for sanctuary, in a horror movie – the place where the monsters couldn’t get you.

   Considering his fears about Hodge, that was a little too ironic for Simon’s comfort.

   “You know, you still owe me a cup of coffee,” he reminded Jace idly when they were inside.

   “I’ll make us all some,” Isabelle announced. “I could use a cup myself.”

   “You know, I don’t think drinking coffee this late is a good idea,” Jace said hastily. Alec nodded in vigorous agreement. Simon glanced between them, confused, but said nothing. He was tired – too tired to try and protest more Shadowhunter weirdness. His mind was a rat’s nest of fears and worries and his stomach was in knots.

   Simiel. Hodge. These Silent Brother people. Clary. There was so much, and he didn’t know what to do about any of it.

   He started when Jace suddenly slung an arm around his shoulder. “Are you moping?” the blond asked, far too cheerfully for the hour. “Because I know just how to cure that.”

   “You can’t take him hunting, Jace,” Isabelle said instantly, with a weary air. “He’s untrained, for one thing.”

   “It’s in his blood,” Jace replied gaily, flashing Simon a grin that dazzled like sunlight on water. Their faces were too close; Simon turned his away. He could hear his own blood, like holding a seashell to your ear; that same roaring, rushing sound. “You should have seen him with the Forsaken.”

   “I feel like I _did_ ,” Alec muttered behind them. “You haven’t shut up about it since it happened.”

   Simon felt his cheeks grow hot. “You _what?_ ” he demanded of Jace, shoving him away. Embarrassment burned up his throat, down into his belly. “Please tell me he’s joking.”

   “He’s exaggerating wildly,” Jace said. “I don’t talk in my sleep.” At Simon’s blank expression, he added “So there have been at least six hours a night when I haven’t mentioned it at all.”

   He grinned, and Simon resisted the urge to laugh. It was just so _Jace._

   “Why are you so happy, anyway?” he asked. “It’s – ” He checked the time on his phone. “ – almost _three am_ , and you’re all – ” he waved his hand at Jace, unable to find the words.

   “Fabulous? Wonderful? Breathtakingly – ”

   “The next word out of your mouth had better be ‘conceited’, or I’m going to punch you again,” Simon warned, trying hard not to grin.

   Even Alec’s lips twitched. It felt like a victory.

   “I was,” Jace said, “just about to suggest that.”

   “What?”

   “You. Punching me. Or not _me_ , because you might damage this face, and that would be a tragedy. But punching other things. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

   “Not really,” Simon said half-heartedly, because it kind of did. “It’s making _you_ sound like a lunatic, though. Was that your goal? Because if so, it’s working.”

   Jace smirked. “Stop playing hard to get,” he said softly, suddenly not playful at all, “and come spar with me.”

   _No_. It was a bad idea. It was late; Simon wanted to meet with the Silent Brothers people and go to bed. He wanted a shower. He wanted to sit and think, not poke his own eye out waving knives around. Even if he might actually learn something useful, something that might end up saving his life. Even if he could taste the _yes_ on his tongue, like honey and ice –

   He swallowed hard. “When are the telepaths arriving?” he asked, and saw Jace’s eyes glitter. They both knew he was avoiding the real question.

   Jace shrugged, his indifference at odds with the intensity of his gaze. “The Silent Brothers come and go as they please. They said they’d come tonight; they didn’t say when.”

   “But you said...” _We wouldn’t want to annoy the Brothers by being late._

   “It would have been incredibly disrespectful to have summoned them and not been here when they arrived,” Alec pointed out.

   “But it could be ages until they show up,” Jace added. He closed his fingers on Simon’s wrist. “Come on,” he said softly. “We have time. And you look like you need it.”

   “I’ll come with you,” Alec said, but from the corner of his eye Simon saw Isabelle hook her arm through her brother’s.

   “Actually, Alec, Hodge was saying earlier that the Iron Sisters sent us a new shipment,” she was saying, skilfully pulling Alec down another hallway. “You can help me sort through all our new toys...”

   Dimly, Simon heard Alec’s protests, but Isabelle was clearly a match for him and the brunet didn’t reappear. It was enough, though, to remind Simon of his promise, enough to make him remember that Jace was taken and there were so many reasons why this was a bad idea.

   He couldn’t think of a single one when Jace tugged on his wrist.

*

   “I don’t suppose your mother gave you any training?” Jace asked as Simon turned in a circle, taking in the array of weaponry on the walls. Simon had seen the training room before, briefly, and it was just as he remembered it; racks and hooks and shelves weighted down with weapons he recognised and weapons he didn’t, with swords and knives and things he couldn’t even figure out how to hold, never mind name.

   “No.” Simon folded his arms over his chest, trying not to feel weird now that he was alone with the guy who had secretly proposed to him. _Relatively speaking, it’s probably not much weirder than demons,_ he told himself.

   It was not a particularly convincing argument.

   “It seems so strange that she didn’t try to prepare you for any of this.” Simon didn’t turn around, but he heard a clatter of metal as Jace went through sharp things, deciding what to start with. “Mundanes learn martial arts and things, don’t they?”

   “Sometimes.”

   “So why not send you to those classes? At least you’d have something, then.”

   Simon felt a spark of anger, both in his mother’s defence and in his own. _I have plenty,_ he thought. _My life has never been empty because I wasn’t gutting things or beating people up!_ “She probably wanted me to be normal,” he answered, keeping his voice calm. With a glance over his shoulder to check that Jace was occupied, he quietly lifted down a number of parts from their places on the wall. Deftly, with sure, familiar movements, he snapped the limbs onto the central riser, instantly creating the main body of a recurve bow – an especially beautiful one, all state of the art carbon and fibreglass, and Simon smiled to himself as he strung it.

   “Jace?”

   “Yes?” The blond didn’t look up yet. Good. There was a row of thumb rings on a hook next to a full and waiting quiver; Simon slipped one of the rings onto his thumb and nocked an arrow against the bow’s rest.

   “Don’t move.”

   Jace froze instantly, and Simon wondered if it was part of a Shadowhunter’s training, to be able to go so still on command – and then he drew the arrow back and let it fly.

   It snapped through the air like black lightning, a swift whistle that skimmed Jace’s shoulder and buried itself in a punching bag a few feet past him.

   “Can I move now?” Jace asked softly. He hadn’t even flinched.

   “No,” Simon answered, just as hushed. He was no Hawkeye, to draw arrows faster than he could blink, but he had another in his hand quickly, and nocked, and drawn back against the corner of his mouth almost like a kiss. He didn’t know what this was, didn’t want to think about the strange, shivering intensity suddenly thick in the air, the pounding of his heart, Jace’s calm, silent stillness.

   “My mom,” he said quietly, “gave me _everything_. She’s a _great_ parent. And me? I am _not_ worth less than you just because I can’t swing a sword around.”

   “I didn’t say you were,” Jace said. His voice had gone low, low and a little hoarse, and he didn’t turn around.

   “No?” Simon swallowed. “I think you implied it.” He sighted, adjusted, and released the arrow; Jace’s hiss of breath was louder than the arrow’s flight as it ruffled his hair and slammed into the punching bag. “Or is it that big of a deal when Alec kills a Forsaken?”

   “Alec has never killed anything, actually, so yes, it would be,” Jace answered, and his voice was satin catching on callused skin. Simon refused to shiver as he found another arrow.

   _Never?_ “So he doesn’t have a bonded blade,” Simon murmured, eyes widening with the realisation. _No freaking WONDER he hates me._ It had sounded important, when Isabelle talked about it. _As if it wasn’t enough that his boyfriend gave me an_ _armask_ _ō_ _blade, then I went and bonded with it_ _._

“Pardon?”

   “Nothing.” Jace’s hands were loose at his sides. For some reason that struck Simon hard, the calm curve of the blond’s fingers at rest. _Alec,_ he reminded himself. He should – stop. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips, and his stomach was clenched, tight and warm and uncertain, and this wasn’t – he hadn’t meant to –

   But then “Are you going to draw that?” Jace asked, hoarse and challenging, and Simon snapped the third arrow into place and touched his lips to the end of it on impulse as he drew it back. _This is how Shadowhunters blow kisses_ , he caught himself thinking – and then it was gone, a streak of black through the air. It brushed Jace’s throat and Simon heard it again, that hiss of indrawn breath that could almost have been the shot itself, but wasn’t, and Jace’s fingers flexed as the arrow thudded into the punching bag.

   “I,” Simon said fiercely, “am _not_ useless.”

   “I can see that.” Low. Amused. Embers in smoke, and hot syrup dripping into Simon’s stomach. “Are you done?”

   Simon lowered the bow, trying to pin down what he was feeling. “Yes,” he answered, a little hoarse himself and not sure why. Not sure what – _that_ – had been.

   Jace turned, and his eyes were dark and heated as they traced Simon’s face, before dropping to the bow in his hand. Simiel was a lead weight. “Where,” Jace asked, slow and deliberate and husky, “did you learn to shoot like that?”

   “Six years of B.R.P.D. training.” Jace looked back up at him, and to get away from the blond’s gaze Simon focussed on taking the bow apart, piece by careful piece. “Hellboy camp. The swords were all foam, but the bows were real.”

   “Hellboy?” Simon didn’t need to look to know Jace had raised an eyebrow.

   “It’s a comic book.” He was incredibly aware of Jace watching him as he unstrung the bow and disconnected the limbs from the riser – which was the main part of the bow’s ‘body’. “The people who make the comics created the camp. ‘ _Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense_ _’. A little hand to hand, some pretend magic – you even get classes in telepathy.”_

   “Really?” He could hear Jace’s smirk. “What number am I thinking of?”

   Simon looked up at him and smiled. “You’re not thinking of a number,” he said softly, and Jace’s expression faltered.

   Simon smirked.

   “Hand to hand?” Jace asked, hoarse as Simon turned and put the bow back on the wall.

   “I was never any good at that part,” Simon admitted, pulling the thumb ring off. It went back on its hook, and he turned back around, facing Jace squarely. “Just the archery.”

   “I’m sure we can fix that.” Jace moved closer, slow strides like a hunting cat. “Don’t worry,” he added, his lips curving up into a grin. “I’ll take care of you.”

   “I bet you will,” Simon murmured. His jacket shifted over his shoulders as he tried to mirror Jace’s pose.

   “The most important thing is to accept that you’re going to get hurt,” Jace told him. “Fear of pain is what makes most people freeze up and panic. You have to relax, accept it, and then not think about it. You’ll be amazed at how much you can take, and how quickly your body recovers from a hard blow.”

   “I thought _I_ was supposed to be the one hitting things?” Simon said warily. “Because it sounds like I’m going to be the one getting hit, instead.”

   Jace’s lips quirked. “ ‘Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to go to his class.’”

   The quote was vaguely familiar. “Didn’t some martial arts guy say that?”

   “Choi Hong Hi,” Jace said. “The founder of Taekwondo. Now. Relax.”

   Completely without his permission, Simon’s mind flashed back to that night last year, Sebastian’s voice rough and sex-strained in his ear. _‘Relax.’_

   He swallowed. “So you can punch me?” he asked hoarsely, shoving the memory away.

   “Yes,” Jace said easily, like it was nothing. “But I won’t hit hard. Just a tap.”

   And that was all the warning Simon got before the blond’s fist slammed into his gut. The blunt explosion of pain ripped Simon’s breath away, and it felt like his body had betrayed him, by feeling this shocky and raw and _hurting_ –

   “You said a _tap!_ ” he gasped through gritted teeth, hot anger holding humiliation’s hand as Jace watched him double over calmly.

   “I lied,” the blond said helpfully, and Simon snarled at him.

   “When someone’s about to punch your stomach and you can’t block them, there’s two things you have to do,” Jace continued, ignoring Simon’s non-verbal commentary. “One: try and shift to one side or the other so you don’t get hit right in the middle. A hard enough blow to the centre of your gut can kill you. Second, breathe out short and hard just before the hit lands.” He beamed. “Now, let’s try it again.”

   Simon stared at him. “I’m not letting you hit me again!” He straightened up testingly, wary both of the pulsing ache in his gut and his so-called instructor.

   Jace smirked. “Can you stop me?” He darted in close and slapped Simon’s shoulder, gone before Simon could even reach for him. Simon’s hands curled into fists. “I can move faster than a mundane can see, Simon. You can’t attack me, you can’t defend against me – so move past the hurt I can do you.”

   “That would be easier if you told me how!” Simon snapped. His own helplessness was laid out stark and bare between them – and it made him furious, hatefully, burningly angry. Jace was a teenage Shadowhunter – how much better would an adult be? If Jace was light years beyond Simon, how much further was Valentine?

   How could he get his mom back from someone who moved too fast to see?

   “Don’t think about the pain,” Jace ordered, and the teasing was gone from his voice. “Don’t fear it, don’t obsess over it. Pain is water, and you are diamond – let it wash over you.”

   _Really, Jace? Pseudo-mystical metaphors? REALLY?_ Simon grit his teeth. “I don’t want you to hit me again,” he said deliberately, forcing his voice to be calm.

   “Tough,” Jace said harshly. “You think a demon’s going to let you go if you ask politely? Or a Forsaken? Do you think Valentine _listens_ when your mother begs him not to – ”

   Simiel was in his hand and slashing through the air like a shooting star, so fast it seemed to trail light as Simon lunged for Jace’s throat. He didn’t remember snarling the blade’s name but the sound still hung on the air as Jace twisted away, and Simon was underwater, he was on fire, the world was molten glass and molasses and Jace – Jace moved and Simon could see him, see him coming-ducking-dodging and he wanted to scream, he wanted to _break_ Jace’s cruel, beautiful mouth, wanted to force him to take back his poison. He snapped out with Simiel and Jace flowed out of the way like water, his fist hit Simon’s wrist like stone and it hurt but – but he ignored it, made himself ignore it, and he was fast, _he_ was fast, wind to Jace’s water. Jace hit him again and the pain was background static, meaningless, it _didn’t fucking matter_ and Simon breathed and thrust and took the blow meant for his stomach on his hip and it was not a dance, it was not choreographed, it was not pretty. There was no roaring in his ears, he couldn’t hear his pulse, there was none of that cinematic movie crap – it was dead silent, and dead still, just his breath and Jace’s and their feet on the floor, quick and pattering like raindrops on a roof and under it all, over it all his mother screaming in his head –

   _Do you think Valentine_ listens _, when your mother begs him not to –_

   Jace’s hand came at Simon’s head and he jerked out of the way, flashed forward with Simiel and had his wrist knocked aside; fist, elbow, the starlight-shard of the blade in his hand; nails, knee, he would have used his _teeth_ if he could have gotten close enough, brutal and dirty and clumsy, there was rage but no skill for it to move through and Jace wasn’t water, he was _light_ , he was fast-faster-faster than anything, even like this, even with the world slow and sluggish and shimmering around them. Simon could see him but couldn’t touch him, could only barely get out of the way and that only sometimes, he felt the hammer of Jace’s fists and his kicks but he _took_ it, breathed short and hard before each blow and rolled with them like steel sheets, reverberating but not breaking.

   When Jace went to knock his wrist Simon tossed Simiel to his left hand and jerked his right arm out of the way; switched the knife back to his right hand and snapped out with it, missed, again and he heard-saw-felt cloth rip and –

   Jace swept Simon’s feet out from under him.

   It was like crashing through a mirror. Simon fell back into reality, out of that slow, white-hot world and into the one he knew, hitting it flat on his back so hard that he half expected the floor to fracture and buckle around him, as if he’d fallen straight out of the sky instead of just fallen over.

   It knocked him breathless.

   And then Jace was on top of him, knocking Simiel from his hand (somehow Simon had held onto it as he fell) and pinning Simon’s wrists _flat_. His, Jace’s, shirt was ripped through from shoulder to opposite hip, almost coming off him, baring a body that belonged on a magazine cover and they were both breathing hard, inches apart, Simon could have leaned up and fit their mouths together with no trouble at all –

   As if he’d heard the thought, Jace’s eyes dropped to Simon’s lips, and Simon felt his whole body clench tight.

   “Simon,” Jace murmured, and Simon was aware of every place their bodies touched, thigh to chest and the blond’s fingers like manacles on his wrists, like brands, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

   Simon swallowed. _Fuck_. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , and, Christ in high heels Jace was definitely, 100% leaning down and, and _you have a boyfriend I’m not allowed to kiss you!_

   “What?” he asked shakily. He could feel Jace’s breath on his lips. Half of him was screaming that this was completely not okay, because _Alec_ , and also, while they were on the subject, there was the issue of the shiny-sharp-MARRIAGE PROPOSAL, aka _Simiel_. And the other half wanted to lick his way into Jace’s mouth. _If he kisses you, you’re going to have to bite him_ , Simon told himself regretfully. _It’s the only moral thing you can do_. Since he literally could not pull away when he was _on the floor_.

   Jace paused a bare centimetre from Simon’s lips. _Alec Alec Alec_ , Simon chanted, his heart pounding.

   “You,” Jace said huskily, “hit like a jaculus demon.”

   There was a pause. Simon’s lust-fogged brain struggled to process the lack of kissing. “Um,” he managed. “Is that...good?”

   Jace smirked. “Jaculi demons don’t have arms.”

   _We are processing your request..._

   “You _dick_ ,” Simon snapped. Embarrassment burned in his cheeks, and he shoved up in a useless attempt to get Jace off him. “Get off me!”

   Jace laughed and released him, rolling onto his back on the floor. Simon sat up, cursing himself, and all Shadowhunters everywhere, and stupidly handsome blond ones in particular. He rubbed his hands over his face, slipping his fingers under his glasses to press against his eyelids. Adrenalin and thwarted desire mixed like oil and water in his stomach.

   Jace folded his arms behind his head. “Although,” he added, as if completely unaware of the picture he made, sprawled and smirking and his _shirt_ , “it does have wings.”

   “What does?” Guilt poured into the messy, sour cocktail in his gut, because he shouldn’t be wanting Jace at all.

   “A jaculus demon. It has wings.”

   “You’re still talking about that?” Simon sighed, and lowered his hands. “What the hell just happened?”

   Jace didn’t pretend not to understand. “You stopped thinking.”

   On the other hand, he seemed to think that _Simon_ would understand. “Try again. And pretend I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

   Jace stretched. Simon caught a glimpse of taut stomach and looked away sharply. “You were raised in the mundane world,” Jace said. “Your mind thinks only a certain level of strength and speed is possible for you. But it’s wrong. You’re a Shadowhunter; the power of the Nephilim is already inside you. And when you were angry enough to stop thinking and just _move_ , your mind got out of your body’s way and you used it.”

   _Mind over matter,_ Simon thought. _Okay. That makes...a kind of sense._ Or it would, if you tossed out things like, oh, the _laws of physics_ and decided the world ran on comic-book rules instead. He rubbed his temples and sighed again. _What is my life?_

   Then he realised that he really _did_ have superpowers now, and grinned like an idiot.

   “You were something beautiful there, for the first few seconds,” Jace continued musingly, and Simon glanced at him, stunned. Jace ignored his shock, frowning up at the ceiling consideringly. “Before you started thinking again.”

   _Beautiful_. The way a sword was supposed to be, Simon understood Jace to mean; a weapon, or maybe something wild and natural. A river, some kind of animal. He didn’t mean Simon’s face, or his body; Jace was talking about something more intrinsic. Which...actually made it more of a compliment, not less. If the strangest one Simon had ever received.

   “Of course, I was letting you hit me,” Jace said, and Simon had to laugh at the grin Jace flashed him, cheeky and challenging and he had to consciously stop himself from leaning down and kissing him, putting his mouth on that grin. It seemed like the most natural response in the world, so much so that it was jarring to remember that, actually, no. No, it wasn’t, and it shouldn’t be. They weren’t together, and they weren’t going to be, and Simon had to get out of here before he forgot that.

   Or worse, stopped caring.

   “Well, if I’m that hopeless, then this is clearly a waste of time. You know what we should do instead? Watch a movie!” He was speaking too fast, and Jace’s smile was slipping into confusion, but Simon was already pushing himself up to his feet, swiping up Simiel almost on instinct. “Seriously, you guys, your lack of pop culture is appalling. I consider it my duty to educate all of you.”

   “All of you?” Jace asked warily, still on the floor. Simon nodded firmly, because Jace’s ripped shirt was all the evidence he needed that they required chaperones, and – Christ on a pogo stick, _Simon had done that_ , had torn Jace’s shirt, and he hadn’t _realised_ before –

   “Yes,” Simon said hurriedly, “all of you. Yes. Definitely.” He smiled, and hoped it didn’t come off too manic. “Let’s go find Isabelle and Alec, shall we?”

   It wasn’t until they were leaving the training room that Simon realised he hadn’t thought about Clary once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon, Simon learns archery at B’nai B’rith summer camp. However, B'nai B'rith is a Jewish organisation, and Simon is not Jewish in this fic. (Which saddens me greatly, because Simon's faith is one of my favourite aspects of his character in canon. But I couldn't work it into this fic believably).
> 
> 'Hellboy camp' does in fact exist, as you will learn if you google. For the sake of this fic, it takes place in New York state, although in reality it doesn't.
> 
> Also, the advice Jace gives about taking punches is very real and something to keep in mind if you're ever in a position to need it.


	12. Chapter 12

   Jace managed to change into a new shirt before they called Alec and Isabelle to join them in the blond’s room, for which Simon was grateful. But after that it got a little weird.

   Simon had envisioned them all sitting down on a sofa to watch something on an actual tv screen – there were ways of connecting an iPad to a television and Simon had planned to use them. But it was not to be, because it turned out that the Institute did not have sofas _or_ a tv. It did not have any kind of recc room, entertainment system, or any variation of communal gathering room that did not feature boardroom like tables where adult Shadowhunters could meet and discuss Very Important Things.

   Simon was, once again, reminded that he _did not want_ to become a Shadowhunter.

   “You know what, I’m going to take a shower while you guys figure things out,” he declared, although he might have saved his breath. They were still in Jace’s room, Isabelle was playing with Simon’s iPad, and Jace and Alec were discussing where they should hold their movie-watching; no one was paying a speck of attention to Simon.

   That was fine with him. It prevented any awkwardness arising from showering on the other side of the door from his maybe-fiancé.

   He wondered if it was possible for a seraph blade to glitter _mockingly._ Simiel seemed to, when he switched it into the pocket of his pyjama pants after the shower.

   When he emerged, towelling his hair, the Shadowhunters had spread blankets on the floor – Jace’s, and some from the surrounding bedrooms, it looked like – because the bed was too narrow for them all to lie on together. Jace had taken possession of the iPad, Isabelle was arranging bowls of snacks on the floor, and Alec watched it all bemusedly from where he was perched on the bed.

   “They came out of a bag, Jace,” Alec was saying as Jace poked a bowl of popcorn warily. “I watched her pour them.”

   “She didn’t touch them, did she?” Jace muttered, too low for Isabelle to hear. “Ah, Simon. Come here and help me defend the popcorn.”

   Simon sat down on the edge of the blankets, reaching for the iPad. “What do they need defending from? Gremlins?”

   Jace gave him an odd look. “Why would gremlins want popcorn?”

   “Because it’s after midnight. If they eat it they’ll turn into – you know what? Never mind.” Clearly that was another film that had not made its way into the cinemas of Idris. If Idris had cinemas, which was something Simon was beginning to doubt. “That’s for another day.” He scrolled through movies. “Right now it’s far more vital that you see things like _this_.”

   Isabelle peeked over his shoulder. “ _Lord of the Rings_ ,” she read aloud. “What’s that?”

   “Absolutely necessary watching,” Simon declared, propping the iPad up against a bowl. “Epic quests, magic rings, elves, war, sword fights, monsters... I think you’ll feel right at home.”

   “I for one have never been on a quest, epic or otherwise,” Jace commented.

   “That’s easily fixed,” Simon said. “Go now to the door of the great Room in search of that most curséd of objects, the Lightbringer. You must cross the ocean of Blanket and the vast plains of Rug, battling ravenous popcorn chimera and cannibal dustbunnies. And when you have vanquished these mighty foes – ”

   Deadpan, Alec got up and switched off the lights.

   “Hey!” Simon protested as Jace and Isabelle laughed. “I wasn’t finished!”

   “Yes,” Alec said firmly, “you were.” It was hard to tell in the dimmed room, but Simon thought Alec might have been almost grinning as he came and lay down on the blankets.

   Which raised the interesting question of seating arrangements. Simon was currently perched on the edge, but he needed to be closer to the iPad (because he was not letting the technologically illiterate Shadowhunters anywhere near it); Izzy wasn’t yet on the blankets at all, idly trailing her fingers through a bowl of Reese’s Pieces; Alec was Simon’s mirror image, lying on the _other_ edge; and Jace was happily ensconced in the middle, munching on popcorn as if the movie had already started.

   This...could be potentially awkward.

   Luckily, Isabelle quickly realised the same thing, and commandeered the centre spot for Simon. “He’s the only one who knows how to work that thing,” she pointed out when Jace protested. The blond muttered something uncomplimentary, but Isabelle clearly had her brothers whipped – appropriate, that, considering her weapon of choice – because the blond slunk sideways obediently nonetheless. That left Simon in the middle, with Jace on one side and Isabelle on the other, and Alec only having to move to reach the snacks.

   Which was fine. It wasn’t like Jace could try anything, with them all lying on their stomachs and Alec right there. Simon figured it was safe enough, even if he was almost painfully aware of Jace’s body in the dark, bare inches from his. It was too easy to remember what it had felt like with Jace pressing him into the floor.

   Simon swallowed and tapped the iPad. “All right, no talking,” he ordered, although no one had been. “This is one of the best films of all time and I will gut anyone who interrupts.”

   Isabelle snorted, but Simon ignored her. “Okay then, here we go.” And he pressed play.

*

   _The room was all gold and white, with walls that gleamed like porcelain, and a high roof that shone like sunlight on clear water. Simon wore a white suit decorated with gold brocade, and there was a leather cuff around his wrist with a glimmer of crystal on it. He tried to look around; everything glittered and gleamed, jewels flashing white fire at throats and ears, beautiful clothes spinning in a dizzying rainbow around him. It was like being inside a Faberge egg._

_“You see someone more interesting than me?” asked Sebastian. In the dream he was an expert dancer, leading Simon through the crowd as if he were a feather in a breeze. Simon’s first lover was wearing all black like a Shadowhunter, his tailored suit decorated with silver to match Simon’s gold. It looked good on him, called attention to his graceful shoulders and the raven-wing darkness of his hair. He was just as painfully handsome as he had been the first – and last – time Simon had seen him, almost a year ago._

_“It’s this place,” Simon said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He turned again as they passed a champagne fountain: an enormous silver dish, the centrepiece an angel with a Romanesque vase pouring sparkling wine down its bare back. People were dipping their glasses into the dish, talking and laughing. The angel’s wings fluttered as Simon passed, throwing arcs of champagne droplets to glitter in the air like mist._

_“Welcome to the Glass City,” said a voice that wasn’t Sebastian’s. Simon realised that Sebastian was gone, and Jace had replaced him. Like Simon the blond was wearing white, and the ghosts of his black runes showed through the thin cotton of his shirt. There was a bronze chain around Jace’s throat, and his hair and eyes were like sunlight._

_“Where’s Sebastian?” Simon asked as they spun again around the champagne fountain. Simon saw Isabelle there, and Alec, both of them in royal blue. They were holding hands, with matching silver rings on their fingers._

_“This place is not for monsters,” said Jace. His hands were careful and cool, and Simon felt aware of every cell of his body that touched one of Jace’s._

_“What do you mean?”_

_Jace leaned close, until his mouth was against Simon’s ear, warm and sweet. “Wake up, Simon,” he whispered. “Wake up.”_

*

   Simon came awake like a gunshot, gasping, and instantly panicked at the hard grip on his wrists. He lashed out instinctively, kicking hard, and heard a familiar voice curse. “Jace?”

   “Yeah.” The blond was sitting next to Simon on the blankets, looking distinctly annoyed; his hair was mussed as if he’d only just woken himself.

   Had he been sleeping beside Simon?

   “Let go of me,” Simon said carefully, and Jace’s eyes flooded with realisation.

   “Sorry.” Simon wondered if he was imagining the way Jace’s fingers lingered on his wrists before slipping away. “You tried to kick me.”

   “Considering what I’ve been through the last few days, you really shouldn’t have expected my waking up _restrained_ to go well.” _I thought Valentine had me._ Simon sat up. Isabelle and Alec were gone, and the iPad had gone into sleep mode. “Did you guys like the movie?”

   Jace grinned. “Alec demands we watch the sequels tomorrow, and I think Isabelle plans on pestering Hodge to buy one of those things,” he pointed at the iPad “for the Institute.”

   “Success.” Simon pushed his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. “Why’d you wake me up?”

   “Why, were you having a good dream?”

   Simon thought of the ballroom, the almost-kiss against his ear and dancing with Sebastian. It must have been thinking he saw the other boy at Vatican that had Simon dreaming about him. “A weird one, anyway,” he murmured. _Wake up, Simon._

   Jace unfolded to his feet. “Hodge said one of the Silent Brothers has arrived to see you. He offered to wake you up himself, but since it’s six a.m., I figured you’d be less cranky if you had something nice to look at.”

   Simon’s tired brain – _six a.m.? Urgh_ – struggled with that for a moment. “You mean you?”

   “What else?”

   Simon snorted a laugh. “Do you have to walk through doors sideways with that ego?” He flapped his hand at Jace. “Give me a minute. I’ll change and be right out.”

   Once the door had closed behind Jace, Simon grabbed a handful of slightly stale popcorn and got to his feet, munching. Despite the hour the room was already becoming warm, thick with humid heat, and Simon wasted no time changing out of his pyjamas and into clean clothes, once again automatically moving Simiel over into his new pocket. Maybe it had some deeper meaning that he and Jace would have to sort out eventually, but it was also a weapon – and he was no longer comfortable declaring that he would never need one. Who knew what today was going to throw at him?

   As he searched through his rucksack for clean socks, he found the little card he’d been given at Vatican. He’d shoved it in the bag after the shower; now he held it up to the light, frowning at the script. The card was thin black paper, and the text looked like someone had poured glitter into a bottle of gold ink and then discovered the joys of calligraphy. It announced a gathering at the humble home of Magnus the Magnificent Warlock, and promised guests ‘a rapturous evening of delights beyond your wildest imaginings’. Simon took a moment to calculate the date, glanced at the one on the card, and worked out that the party was tomorrow night.

   _Which apparently Lint is performing at._ He was going to have to call Eric. _And_ Clary; he hadn’t texted her his safecall yet. But she was probably asleep by now; it could wait until later.

   Shoving the card into his bag to consider when he was more awake, Simon finished getting dressed and went out to find Jace in the hallway. Church was with him, circling restlessly and muttering, if a cat could be said to mutter.

   Jace grinned at him. “I know what your shirt means.”

   “As well you should,” Simon told him, trying not to grin. His shirt featured a picture of a box of fries tucked in with an onion ring – and the text _One Ring to Rule Them All._ “I’d have been very disappointed if you missed the reference after the movie.” He glanced at the cat. “What’s up with him?”

   “The Silent Brothers make him nervous.”

   Remembering the conversation they’d had about the Brothers outside Vatican, Simon wondered if he should feel more nervous than he did. Maybe it would hit him harder when he was more awake, but as he followed Jace down the hall he was just grateful for the coolness of the thick stone walls.

   Church did not come with them.

   Simon felt his first brush of nerves when he realised they were going to the library; he’d gotten the feeling that that was Hodge’s particular hang-out, aside from the greenhouse. More than the thought of telepathic Shadowhunters, Simon didn’t want to face Hodge just yet. But no such luck; the library was dark, lit only by the soft light of dawn filtering through the ceiling windows, but it was enough to make out Hodge sitting behind his desk.

   Simon slid his hand into his pocket and curled his fingers around Simiel.

   Another figure stepped out of the shadows; what Simon had dismissed as a patch of deeper darkness was actually a person, hidden behind the hood of a thick, parchment-coloured robe that covered the the individual completely. A complicated line of symbols – Simon would have bet money that they were runes – ran along the robe’s sleeves and hem, a dark brown that was eerily reminiscent of dried blood.

   _Okay,_ Simon thought, _maybe Isabelle was right._ Because this was pretty creepy already, and he hadn’t even seen the person’s – the man’s? Silent _Brothers_ , so the robed figure was probably a man – face yet.

   “This,” said Hodge, “is Brother Jeremiah of the Silent City.”

   Simon shot him a look, but Hodge’s face was impassive. Either Hodge was pretending that their last conversation had never happened, or any talk they might have about it was being put aside for the moment. Simon turned back as the man – Jeremiah – walked towards them. He moved completely silently; even his robe and cloak made not the slightest rustle, and if not for the strange – but not unpleasant – smell around him Simon would have wondered if the man was an illusion, or a ghost.

   “And this, Jeremiah,” Hodge said, rising from the desk, “is Simon Fray, the boy I wrote to you about.”

   “Hi,” Simon said. The hooded face turned towards him slowly, and Simon felt a chill run up his spine and into his hair. But Brother Jeremiah did not answer.

   _Definitely, definitely creepy._

   “I decided you were right, Jace,” Hodge continued.

   “I _was_ right,” Jace answered. “I usually am.”

   Hodge, as Simon would have, ignored this. “I sent a letter to the Clave about all of this, but Simon’s memories are his own. Only he can decide how he wants to deal with the contents of his own mind. If he wants the help of the Silent Brothers, he should have that choice.”

   Although Hodge didn’t look at him, Simon knew that the words were meant for him and not Jace. They sounded like a peace offering, but Simon hesitated, suddenly unsure. The shadowy figure of the Silent Brother was so – well, _silent_. Silence and darkness clung to Jeremiah like a miasma, black and cold, and even though Simon told himself he was being an idiot, it was still unnerving.

   Plus, the world had demons in it. Maybe it wasn’t so unreasonable to be afraid.

   _*This is Jocelyn’s son?*_

   Simon jumped. The words – they entered his head as if they were his own, but they weren’t, and okay, now he was _very_ unnerved.

   “Yes,” said Hodge, adding “but his father was a mundane.”

   _*That does not matter,*_ said Jeremiah (because which other telepathic Shadowhunter could it have been?) _*The blood of the Clave is dominant.*_

   And just like that, Simon’s wariness was forgotten, overcome by interest. Clave blood – Shadowhunter blood – was dominant? What did that mean on a biological level? There was a Shadowhunter gene, and it trumped – whatever made you a mundane? Simon only had high-school biology, and that wasn’t nearly enough to work it out, but suddenly he wanted to hit the books with his mom, the way they always did when one of them thought of a question neither knew the answer to –

   His trail of thought stopped dead with a twist of pain. _Mom._

 _Do you think Valentine_ listens _, when your mother begs him not to –_

“Why do you call her Jocelyn?” Simon asked quietly, grabbing at the first distraction he could think of. “Did you know my mom?”

   “The Brothers keep records on all members of the Clave,” Hodge explained. “Exhaustive records – ”

   “Not that exhaustive,” Jace commented, “if they didn’t even know she was still alive.”

   _*It is likely that she had the assistance of a warlock in her disappearance. Most Shadowhunters cannot so easily escape the Clave.*_ There was no emotion in Jeremiah’s ‘voice’; if he was upset that someone had tricked his order, he didn’t sound it.

   Simon nodded slowly. “But if she went to so much trouble to escape, why would she take the Mortal Cup with her? It practically garauntees that people would come after her. It would make more sense to leave it behind – so why does Valentine think she has it?” He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear what Hodge in particular would say about it.

   “Jocelyn above all people would have known what would happen if Valentine had the Cup,” Hodge said, not disappointing him. “And I imagine she didn’t trust the Clave to hold on to it. Not after Valentine got it away from them in the first place.”

   That did sound like his mother. And for a moment, Simon felt a spark of amusement that he and his mom clearly had the same disparaging opinion of the Clave.

   “Jocelyn turned against her husband when she found out what he intended to do with the Cup,” Hodge continued. “It’s not unreasonable to assume she would do everything in her power to keep the Cup from falling into his hands. The Clave themselves would have looked to her first if they’d thought she was still alive.”

   “My mom, Valentine,” Simon counted aloud. “Sounds like no one the Clave thinks is dead is ever actually dead. I’d recommend dental records.”

   “My father’s dead,” said Jace, a cold, steely edge to his voice. “I don’t need dental records to tell me that.”

   Simon felt stricken. “Sorry,” he said quietly, ashamed of himself.

   _*That is enough,*_ Brother Jeremiah said. _*There is truth to be learned here, if you are patient enough to listen to it.*_

   He raised his hands and flung back his hood. Simon blinked hard and forced himself not to react any more visibly to Jeremiah’s smoothly bald head, pale as paper with only dark shadows where his eyes ought to have been. Horrible black stitches, stark against his white skin, had been sewn through his lips, sealing his mouth closed, and Simon flashed back to what Isabelle had said.

   _They mutilate themselves._

   Simon wanted to be sick.

   _*The Brothers of the Silent City do not lie_ , _*_ Jeremiah told him. _*If you want the truth from me, you shall have it, but I shall ask of you the same in return.*_

   “That sounds fair,” Simon said hoarsely. He took a deep breath, praying that Jace was right – praying that he had some clue to his mother’s whereabouts buried in his mind. That would easily make it worth letting this very scary person inside his head. “What do I have to do?”

   Brother Jeremiah nodded once, but didn’t answer verbally. He moved towards Simon, smooth and soundless as a shadow, and Simon fought the urge to flinch. He wanted to ask if it would hurt, but couldn’t do it – not in front of Hodge, and in front of Jace. _Jace has probably never asked ‘will it hurt?’ in his life_ , Simon thought, glancing at the blond for a moment. Strangely, the thought made him feel better, made it easier to bear when the Silent Brother’s white, skeletal hands came up to cup Simon’s face. Up close, Simon could see that Jeremiah’s fingers were covered in elegant, delicate runes, startlingly beautiful for such a terrifying man. Simon could feel the power in them, a shimmering, electric charge that was hot and thrilling against his skin – but not a real warmth, he realised, in the same way that Jeremiah’s voice wasn’t a real voice. He felt it in his head, felt it with something deeper than skin.

   He closed his eyes, but not before seeing a flicker of worry cross Jace’s expression.

   Out of the darkness behind his eyelids, colours burst and swirled like the rainbow sheen on an oil slick. Gradually he began to feel a pressure – like, but not like, the thick heaviness at the bottom of an Olympic swimming pool. It grew steadily, and it was pulling at him – he was reminded abruptly of a Dementor sucking the soul from Harry on the train to Hogwarts; the shimmering effect they’d used in the movie, the way the rest of the world had blurred and there was only the drawing pull extracting something terribly vital from him – that embodied the sensation perfectly. Simon’s fingers tightened reflexively on Simiel, seeking comfort; he felt as though he was being crushed, laid flat against a stone floor while something unbearably heavy pressed down on him, a block of cement or – or Dorothy’s house, fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East, but Simon had no ruby slippers to wish himself away –

   He heard himself gasp and abruptly everything was ice, frosted and frozen. He was on an icy street, grey buildings above him and to every side, freezing whiteness lashing at him like shrapnel –

   “That’s _enough_ ,” Jace said sharply, slicing through the winter scene like a beam of sunlight, and the snow vanished. Simon’s eyes snapped open.

   He was in the library at the Institute, and it was summer in New York, not winter in some place grey. Hodge and Jace were watching him anxiously, but Brother Jeremiah stood statue-still, marble and pearl. Simon’s left hand – his right was in his pocket clutching his seraph blade – was stinging.

   When he looked down at it, he could see ugly red lines his nails had bitten into his skin.

   “ _Jace,_ ” Hodge said.

   “Look at his hands.” Jace nodded at Simon, who clenched his hand again to hide the marks.

   “I’m fine,” he said, only a little shakily. The terrible pressure was gone, but his face and hair were wet with sweat, his shirt sticking to his spine as if he’d been soaked with glue.

   _*There is a block in your mind,*_ Brother Jeremiah said. _*Your memories cannot be reached.*_

   “You mean he’s repressed his memories?” Jace asked.

   _*No. I mean they have been blocked from his conscious mind by a spell. I cannot break it here. He will have to come to the Bone City and stand before the Brotherhood.*_

   _So Dorothea was right,_ Simon thought.

   Jace looked at his tutor. Seeing as how the Silent Brothers had been his idea, Simon thought Jace looked very pale. “Hodge, he shouldn’t have to go if he doesn’t – ”

   “It’s okay.” Simon looked at Brother Jeremiah. “I’ll go.” Although again, anywhere called the Bone City sounded like a deeply unpleasant place.

   “Fine,” Jace said. “Then I’ll go with you.”

*

   Walking out of the Institute was similar, Simon decided, to what it would feel like if he’d used Dorothea’s portal to visit the Amazon basin; one moment, he was sheltered by the cool stone of the cathedral, and the next, the air was thick enough to drink with a spoon and hot enough that Simon was quickly drenched with heat-sweat to match his previous chill/fear-sweat.

   It did not seem an auspicious start to the day.

   “Why aren’t we going with Brother Jeremiah?” Simon asked, honestly confused – and maybe a little resentful that he had to face the heat – as Jace led them to the corner of the street. They might have been the only two people in the world – until a garbage truck appeared and slowly began working its way down the block. That, Simon thought with amuesment, should sufficiently quash any romantic urges the privacy might evoke. “Is he ashamed to be seen with us?”

   “More _you_ than _us_ , I think,” Jace mused. He somehow managed to look cool despite the rising temperature; Simon couldn’t decide whether to smack him or demand his secret.

   “What?” Simon demanded indignantly. “What’s wrong with me?”

   “Your shirt features the powers of an onion ring,” Jace reminded him.

   Simon looked down. He’d forgotten about that. “Oh. You’re probably right; I would totally ruin the whole occult serial-killer vibe he has going on.”

   Jace snorted. “Something like that.”

   They’d stopped for Simon’s phone before leaving; Simon pulled it out of his pocket and flipped it open, staring at the time. “Do you think Clary would be up yet?” he asked.

   Jace rolled his eyes and stared up at the sky as if it were about to break open and reveal all the secrets of the universe to him. “With everything that’s going on, you’re worried about _her?_ ”

   Simon shook his head. “Not worried. Just...” Well. Maybe worried. But about himself, not Clary. Wasn’t it strange that he’d barely thought of her at all? He’d felt his heart breaking last night – and then Jace had swept in, and there’d been so much else to deal with that he’d just...forgotten.

   Lost in thought, it took him a few seconds to realise that Jace was saying something. When Simon blinked at him, he saw a wry grin scrawl across his face. “What?” Simon asked warily.

   “I wish you’d stop desperately trying to get my attention like this,” he said. “It’s become embarrassing.”

   Simon felt himself flush, and pushed his phone into his pocket. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” he informed him.

   “I can’t help it. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain.”

   Simon forgot himself and laughed. Jace looked smug.

   And then Simon stopped laughing, because the strangest vehicle he’d ever seen had appeared at the corner of the street and was coming towards them. He stared, wide-eyed as a fairytale coach pulled up in front of the two boys – but instead of being made of glass like Cinderella’s, the carriage was a black opal laid out on black velvet. Shimmering streaks of fiery blue and violet gleamed in its ebony surface, and its windows were tinted dark like a limo’s; the wheels were black, and the leather trimmings, and the two horses rigged up to the thing were huge and black, snarling and pawing at the tarmac beneath their hooves more like wolves than anything equine. Brother Jeremiah sat on the metal driver’s bench, the reins clutched in his gloved hands.

   “What,” Simon asked hoarsely, “is everyone else seeing?”

   “A very nice limo,” Jace replied. “Now get in.” When Simon remained frozen, Jace huffed and grabbed Simon’s arm, hauling him up and in through the coach’s open door. He swung himself up in after, and instantly the carriage began to move. He fell back in the seat – plush and thick and amazingly comfortable – and looked over at Simon. “A personal escort to the Bone City is nothing to turn your nose up at.”

   “The Bone City? We’re still going there? And here I thought you were taking me to the ball.”

   Jace smirked. “I’m afraid I forgot the corsage,” he drawled. “Will you ever forgive me?”

   “Well, I’m certainly not putting out,” Simon answered before he could stop himself, and saw Jace’s eyes turn sharp and hot.

   Hurriedly Simon turned his attention to the window, mentally kicking himself. But quickly the distraction became real; he would never have thought a horse and carriage would fare well in the Manhattan traffic, but Brother Jeremiah had them clattering smoothly downtown much faster than Simon would have guessed possible. This was probably helped by the fact that no one else on the road seemed able to see them; when a yellow cab switched lanes and cut them off, the black horses _jumped on top of the taxi_. Simon was still gaping when the carriage, rather than rolling clumsily along the ground, floated up behind the horses, rolling lightly and silently up and over the cab and down the other side.

   “What the – how did – _what?_ ” The cab driver was smoking and staring ahead as the carriage came back down with a jolt. The man was completely oblivious.

   “Just because you can see through glamour now...”

   Simon shook his head. “It’s just – kind of insane, to face up to the fact that there’s this whole other world out there. One that most people can’t even _see._ ” Amazing. But insane. “I know I couldn’t see it either, until recently, but...”

   “Now you see the world as it is – infinite,” Jace said with a dry, private smile.

   Simon snorted. “Don’t quote Blake at me.”

   Jace’s smile turned less dry. “I didn’t think you’d recognise it. You don’t strike me as someone who reads a lot of poetry.”

   “No, but I _am_ a musician,” Simon reminded him. “And everyone knows that quote because of the Doors.”

   Jace looked blank.

   Simon groaned. “There’s so much to teach you,” he said mournfully. “Harry Potter. Gremlins. Iron Man. Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock. And now music too. I’m going to end up a wrinkly old man, and I’ll _still_ be trying to teach you how to work tumblr and the difference between Romeo and Juliet and Dean and Cas.”

   Jace frowned.

   “There is no difference, they’re both epic love stories. Although I always thought Shakespeare meant R&J as a satire.” Simon waved the thought away. “But you must know _some_ music. You were playing the piano the other day.”

   The carriage lurched upward again. Simon’s hands flew to clutch at his seat, and he stared out the window – they were rolling along the top of a downtown M1 bus. From here he could see the upper floors of old apartment buildings, decorated with protective gargoyles and elaborate cornices.

   “I was just messing around,” Jace said without looking at Simon. “My father insisted I learn to play an instrument.”

   Dangerous territory. Simon searched for something innocuous to say. “He sounds a little strict,” he tried tentatively.

   “Not at all,” Jace said sharply. “He indulged me. He taught me everything – weapons training, demonology, arcane lore, ancient languages. He gave me anything I wanted. Horses, weapons, books, even a hunting falcon.”

   Simon thought of Christmas morning with his mom and Luke, unwrapping books and chemistry sets, movie memorabilia and CDs. There’d been PLAYMOBIL and do-it-yourself rocket ships and chocolate coins in his stocking, and he felt a lump in his throat, because Jace’s life, by contrast, sounded cold and bleak. “Sounds like a fairytale,” he said quietly. _The kind where the prince is locked away in a tower,_ he didn’t say.

   Jace looked startled. He looked down at his hands, avoiding Simon’s gaze. Jace had slim and careful hands, hands that Simon could more easily imagine dancing over a piano than holding a weapon. A ring Simon had not really noticed before flashed on his finger; it was solid and heavy-looking, not feminine in the slightest. A letter W was carved into the dark silver, surrounded by a pattern of stars. W for Wayland? Simon wondered.

   “Why are you here?” Simon heard himself ask quietly. Jace’s head snapped up.

   “The Bone City can be unnerving,” the blond said after a pause. “I thought – ”

   Simon shook his head impatiently. His heart was pounding. “Not _here_ , in the coach. I mean – why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

   It was a stupid question. He knew what Jace would say – that the Mortal Cup needed to be found, or maybe that Valentine was the Shadowhunter equivalent to a war criminal and had to be brought to justice. And yet – and yet, as the silence stretched out thick and heavy between them, Simon didn’t think those were the reasons running through Jace’s mind. His gold eyes glittered, like the light fracturing on a seraph blade, on _Simiel_ –

   Jace looked away first. “Valentine killed my father,” he said roughly. “You’re my best chance of finding him before the Clave does – and killing him myself.”

   Woah. _That_ had not been what Simon expected. _At all._ Simon made himself breathe, and told himself he wasn’t disappointed. “I thought you told Hodge that those two guys we saw killed your dad?”

   Jace wasn’t looking at him, and Simon went quiet, his voice stopped in his throat. The coach was rolling smoothly through Astor Place now, deftly dodging a New York University tram as it wove through traffic. Pedestrians on the pavement looked as though they were drowning under the heavy weight of the air. Homeless kids were clustered around the base of a brass statue, their cardboard signs pleading for money. Simon felt his attention caught by two of them in particular, as though he’d swallowed a fishing hook; a girl whose bald head was so smooth she reminded him of Brother Jeremiah, and her companion, a dark-skinned boy whose dreadlocks did nothing to hide the dozens of piercings decorating his face. The boy turned his head as if he were watching the carriage – as if he could see it – and Simon saw that one of his eyes was clouded, pupil-less, before the coach turned a corner and he lost sight of the pair.

   “I was ten.” When Simon turned to look at Jace, his expression was as blank and emotionless as his voice. “We lived in a manor house, out in the country. My father always said it was safer away from people. I heard them coming up the drive and went to tell him. He told me to hide, so I hid. Under the stairs. I saw those men come in. They had others with them. Not men. Forsaken. They overpowered my father and cut his throat. The blood ran across the floor. It soaked my shoes. I didn’t move.”

   Simon sat frozen, knew he was staring and couldn’t make himself stop. “God, Jace,” he whispered when it became clear that Jace was finished speaking. His eyes stung, and he felt the horror of it in his throat, a deep, black hole of heartbreak in the pit of his stomach. It was too easy to see it – far from making it easier to bear, the calm, bare-bones way Jace spoke, without flourish or description, made Simon’s heart ache for the young man in front of him. And for the ten year old who’d had to see that. “I’m so sorry.”

   In the dark of the carriage, Jace’s eyes gleamed. “I don’t understand why mundanes always apologise for things that aren’t their fault.”

   “I’m not taking the blame for it. I’m just – I’m sorry that it happened. I’m sorry you had to go through that – sorry for your pain. And that the universe sucks. I’d change it if I could.” The intensity in his voice caught them both by surprise, he saw from the startled glance Jace gave him. But Simon meant it. If he could have – if he’d been a real superhero, he’d have done anything he could to turn back the clock and save Jace’s father, save Jace from having to ever see something so terrible.

   _It soaked my shoes._ Simon looked out the window and told himself that Jace would not appreciate his tears.

   “I’m not unhappy,” Jace said suddenly, as if it were important for Simon to know that. “Only people with no purpose are unhappy. I’ve got a purpose.”

   “Do you mean killing demons, or getting revenge for your father?”

   “Both.”

   Simon would have been surprised at any other answer, but it seemed so sad. Sad and hollow. “And he’d really want you to kill those men?”

   “And Valentine. They’re Circle members; he’s the one who ordered my father murdered.” He saw Simon’s expression. “A Shadowhunter who kills another of his brothers is worse than a demon and should be put down like one,” he recited, and Simon wondered, sickly, which of Jace’s textbooks said that. Wondered how old Jace had been when he was taught that mantra.

   “Are all demons evil, though?” he asked. “You guys have the Accords with vampires and werewolves, so clearly you don’t think all of _them_ are evil.”

   Jace shot him an exasperated look. “It’s not the same thing at all. Vampires, werewolves, even warlocks, they’re part human. Part of this world, born in it. They belong here. But demons come from other worlds. They’re interdimensional parasites. They come to a world and use it up. They can’t build, just destroy; they can’t make, only use. They drain a place to ashes and when it’s dead, they move on to the next one. It’s life they want – not just your life or mine, but all the life of this world, its rivers and cities, its oceans, its everything. And the only thing that stands between them and the destruction of all _this_ – ” he pointed at the window, at the passing streets and cars and people walking to work, “ – is the Nephilim.”

   Simon turned that over in his mind for a while – and eventually decided that either Jace’s story didn’t make sense, or there was more to it than that. It didn’t make sense that humanity were the only sentient race who weren’t out to destroy and devour everything – although, he allowed that that it was a matter of opinion that humans _weren’t_ like that. “There’s no other world like ours? Everything’s just – dead ash and hungry monsters?”

   “I didn’t say that. There are probably other living worlds like ours. But only demons can travel between them. Because they’re mostly noncorporeal, or partly, but nobody knows exactly why. Plenty of warlocks have tried it, and it’s never worked. Nothing from Earth can pass through the wardings between worlds. If we could,” he mused, “we might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody’s even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them spill in through the wardings. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don’t come back.”

   _Then change your tactics_ , Simon wanted to say. _Use crossbows, make seraph bolts instead of seraph blades. Keep your distance as much as possible._ “Is that why you want the Mortal Cup back?” he asked instead. “So you could make more Shadowhunters?”

   “We want it back so Valentine can’t create his child army,” Jace corrected him. “But it’s true, it would help. A lot of us die young – our numbers are slowly dwindling.”

   “If Shadowhunter blood is dominant, I don’t see why you can’t just have kids with mundanes,” Simon said, looking out the window. “Fresh genetics, and the numbers go up. Sounds like a win-win to me.” He glanced back at Jace and raised his eyebrows. “Or do Nephilim not like reproducing?”

   Jace burst out laughing. “Sure,” he gasped, grinning widely. “We _love_ reproducing. It’s one of our favourite things.”

   The smooth motion of the carriage suddenly turned bouncy and clattering. A glance showed Simon that they were now travelling over cobblestones. “We’re here,” Jace declared, staring out of the other window as the coach passed through a dark iron gate, woven through with thick vines. _New York City Marble Cemetery,_ the arch above them announced.

   “I thought they stopped burying people in Manhattan a hundred years ago?” Simon asked.

   “The Bone City has been here longer than that.”

   The carriage stopped, and Jace reached past Simon to open the door. They had reached a square of greenery surrounded by high marble walls, soft with moss like a jewellery box lined with emerald velvet. Jace jumped down, and Simon followed him, with only a brief hesitation at the long drop. Brother Jeremiah was descending from the driver’s bench. There was something off about the picture he made, and it wasn’t the fact that his robes made no sound as he moved.

   Simon started when he realised what it was. The Silent Brother cast no shadow.

   If Brother Jeremiah noticed Simon’s shock, he didn’t comment on it. _*Come_ , _*_ he said simply. He led them towards the garden’s darkened centre, and when Jace followed unhesitatingly Simon went with him, with only a glance back at the bright lights of Second Avenue. The glow caught on the garden’s pearly walls, on the lines of text carved into the stone, and Simon felt a shiver of surprise when he realised that the words were names, names and dates. Grave markers.

   It wasn’t frightening. But when he spun in a circle and saw that the entire garden was covered in names... So many dead. So much loss.

   Were they Shadowhunter names?

   “Hurry up,” Jace said impatiently, jolting Simon out of his reverie. He ran to catch up to where Jace and Jeremiah were paused in front of a marble statue, one slightly taller than the Silent Brother. It was angel, and Simon, remembering the myth of the Shadowhunters’ creation, supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. It was beautiful – beautiful and _fierce_ , so that it was easy to imagine such a creature giving rise to a race of demon hunters. But instead of the sword Simon expected, it cradled a cup in its graceful hands, a chalice studded with marble jewels.

   “Is that the Mortal Cup?” he asked. It looked just like the one his mom had drawn for Dorothea’s deck, but Jocelyn was a Shadowhunter, and it made sense that she might draw inspiration from what she knew.

   Jace nodded. “And that,” he added, pointing to the Latin inscription on the statue’s base, almost hidden by the moss growing over it, “is the motto of the Nephilim.”

   Simon just looked at him, waiting patiently. _Raised a mundane, remember?_

   Jace grinned. “It means ‘Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234.’”

   “It does _not!_ ” Simon protested, shocked into laughter.

   _*It means,*_ Jeremiah interjected, _*‘The Descent into Hell is easy.’*_

   Simon’s laughter fled like an exorcised ghost. _That’s the motto of a whole PEOPLE?_ He couldn’t decide if it depressed him or made him angry, for some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on. _What is WRONG with them?_

   “It’s the Brothers’ little joke, having that here,” said Jace. “You’ll see.”

   “Ominous,” Simon commented. He watched as Brother Jeremiah withdrew a stele from somewhere – Simon didn’t see how he did it – and traced a rune onto the statue’s base with the faintly glowing tip. Without warning the angel’s mouth suddenly dropped open in a silent scream, and Simon jerked backwards.

   “Don’t blink!” he yelped, unable to help himself.

   Jace turned to look at him with that expression Simon was becoming very familiar with – the _what in God’s name are you doing?_ expression. Jeremiah ignored him completely as a horrible hole opened up at the base of the statue. It looked just like a grave.

   Simon’s heart sank. “Let me guess. That’s where we’re going.”

   “Unless you see another gate to Hell,” Jace said cheerfully. “Come along.”

   Simon kept a half-serious wary eye on the statue as he followed Jace to the hole, but eventually he had to look down. Thankfully, it did not seem like he was going to have to jump down an Alice in Wonderland-esque pit – there were stone steps leading down into the darkness, complete with eminently suitable torches burning green and blue. Simon had to give points for atmosphere, even if he really wished there’d been electric lighting instead. The flames cast flickering shadows over the stairs that made him uneasy.

   Jace took the stairs casually, but even he didn’t seem 100% comfortable. Which really didn’t make Simon feel any better, but he couldn’t see what else to do but follow.

   He nearly jumped out of his skin when a cold hand grabbed his arm. His first – completely insane – thought was _It’s the angels!_ Which turned out to be a good thing, because it meant that discovering it was only Brother Jeremiah was a relief, instead of deeply disturbing and creepy.

   _*Do not fear_ , _*_ the Silent Brother told him. His fingers dug into Simon’s arm like claws, and Simon deliberately did not try and glance under Jeremiah’s hood. _*It would take more than a single human cry to wake these dead.*_

   _...!_ said Simon’s brain.

   The second Jeremiah released him, Simon cast his pride to the winds and _bolted_ after Jace, because _oh my fucking God,_ that was probably the _least_ reassuring thing he had _ever heard_. More than a _single_ cry? What about two, would two screams wake the dead? And, _human_ cry? That was just _horrible_. What else might be down here to potentially summon the dead from their not-so-restful rest? Demons? Would a demon cry do the trick?

   Simon just about managed not to jump Jace and cling to him when he found the blond at the bottom of the steps, holding a torch he’d taken from one of the brackets. Its green light was not comforting. “You all right?”

   _No!_ Simon wanted to shout. _I am not all right! The dead could potentially get up and start walking around, but I’m supposed to be okay about it because_ my _screaming won’t wake them up!_ And oh God, _why_ did Jeremiah think Simon might scream?

   He made himself nod.

   “You sure? You don’t want me to hold your hand?”

   Simon opened his mouth to reply – and paused. His heart pounded against his ribs, and not with fear – at least, not fear of the darkness and the dead. Without letting himself think about it too deeply, he withdrew Simiel from his pocket and whispered its name, unable, now that he knew, not to taste the meaning behind it. The blade extended with the softest sound, glowing like starlight in the dark tunnel, and by its light he saw the look on Jace’s face. The stunned, breathless amazement in his eyes, raw and soft and sweet, as if Simon had done something incredible.

   A wedding-sword, a symbol of...something, and Simon had reached for it when he was afraid.

   Simon’s mouth went dry. He might as well have taken Jace’s hand; the declaration probably couldn’t have been any more obvious. “Like Eärendil,” he managed, lifting the knife to illustrate his point.

   Jace blinked, but realisation came quickly. “The gift Galadriel gave Frodo?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, and he watched Simon like...

   Simon nodded, swallowing hard, and wondered if Jace was remembering the words that had accompanied that gift. _A light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out._ He looked away, breaking their stare and feeling air rush into his lungs. He’d forgotten to breathe.

   He heard Jace suck in a breath too.

   “No need to stand on ceremony, Brother Jeremiah,” the blond said after a pause. His voice was still a little rough. “Lead on. We’ll be right behind you.”

   Simon jumped as the Silent Brother glided past them soundlessly. Simon had completely forgotten about him – how much had he seen? Not enough to make him care, apparently; he strode down the tunnel without a backwards glance at the boys, and after a moment Simon followed, holding Jace’s proposal out in front of him against the dark.


	13. Chapter 13

   It was probably because he’d just rewatched _Fellowship of the Ring_ a few hours ago, but Simon’s first glimpse of the Silent City reminded him of Moria. Incredible marble arches were carved out of the darkness like a forest of shadow and stone, almost exactly how he’d imagined the dwarf city when he’d read the books. The white rock gleamed like polished bone – or, Simon corrected himself hurriedly, because dead things were the last thing he wanted to think about just now, more like the fur of a white tiger. Bands of semi-precious black gems broke up the whiteness like a tiger’s stripes, almost seeming to move in the light of Jace’s torch, like muscle rippling beneath marble skin. Runes flickered on the floor, moving in and out of the shadows cast by the flame like sharks in dark water, and Simon’s gut twisted with unease.

   _‘So, Hades, you finally made it. How are things in the underworld?’_

_‘Well, they’re just fine. You know, a little dark, a little gloomy. And, as always, hey, full of dead people. What are you gonna do?’_

   Simon grinned to himself – Hades had always been his favourite Disney villain – but there wasn’t much that could make him feel comfortable in these surroundings. The feeling only increased as they passed under the first of the arches to find what was unmistakably a tomb – the old fashioned, expensive kind, a big square of white stone almost like a house, which only made Simon wonder what might live in it. He had a sick feeling that he didn’t want to find out.

   “It’s a mausoleum,” Jace said, lifting his torch so the green light fell on the tomb’s door. Somehow it was not reassuring that the door was bolted with iron and a complex, deadly-looking rune. “We bury our dead here.”

   He walked on. Simon paused a second, hypnotised by the rune on the door, before he shook himself out of it and hurried after the blond. “I distinctly remember you telling me these guys were librarians,” he hissed under his breath, not wanting Jeremiah to hear him.

   _*There are many levels to the Silent City_ , _*_ Brother Jeremiah said, and Simon jumped. _*And not all the dead are buried here, of course. There is another ossuary in Idris, much larger. But on this level are the mausoleums and the places of burning.*_

   Simon imagined stakes like something out of the witch-burning days. “Sorry?”

   _*Those who die in battle are burned, their ashes used to make the marble arches that you see here. The blood and bone of demon slayers is itself a powerful protection against evil. Even in death, the Clave serves the cause.*_

   Simon was silent, thinking that over as they passed more tombs, square marble vaults with locked doors. It was obvious that there was something pretty messed-up about Shadowhunters – something fanatical and unthinking, totalitarian and really damn dubious. But he couldn’t deny that what they did was incredible – hunting monsters to keep people safe, to keep _mundanes_ safe, who couldn’t even see them. They gave their lives for it, and never received one word of thanks from people who didn’t even know they existed. There was something bitter and sad about it – he wasn’t totally sure Jace and the others had ever seen a movie before he played _Lord of the Rings_ for them, or ever done anything just to have fun, instead of training or hunting. They were his age, and every day they left their home knowing they might not come back, that they might die screaming. That was awful.

   That they did it anyway was insane, and amazing.

   _And even when they die, they keep fighting,_ he thought, looking at the arches with a new perspective. _They never give up. They’ll save the world, and maybe die trying – and they’ll keep fighting even then_. He wasn’t sure it was healthy, but he found himself respecting anyone that dedicated to the forces of Good.

   Jace thrust the torch ahead of him, revealing another staircase spiralling down into thicker darkness. “We’re going to the second level, where the archives and the council rooms are,” he told Simon as Simon stared warily into the shadows.

   “Is Tartarus on the 13th level?” Simon muttered. Jace, the bastard, just grinned at him.

   Like the previous stairs, these ended in a tunnel, which gradually widened into a square hall. Unlike the Great Hall at Hogwarts, this one had incredibly creepy pillars holding up the ceiling at each corner, and there was no getting away from it; Simon was 100% sure that these ones really _were_ made of bone. He wanted very badly to scoff at the cliché creepiness – the onyx torch holders, the thick smell of ashes, the huge silver sword hanging behind the long table of black stone – except that it was proving very successful at freaking him the fuck out. The sword, at least, was eerily beautiful, its hilt shaped to look like outspread angel wings, although he couldn’t imagine anyone big enough to wield the thing.

   But the cloaked, cowled Silent Brothers sitting at the table like Voldemort’s Death Eaters, staring at him from within their hoods? Nope. Simon was ready to go home now.

   _*We have arrived_ , _*_ Jeremiah stated, and Simon resisted the urge to say something snarky. Way to go stating the obvious! _*Simon, stand before the Council.*_

 _I’d really rather not,_ Simon thought, but he didn’t say it. He glanced at Jace, but from the confused, slightly wary expression on the Shadowhunter’s face Simon realised that Jeremiah must have only spoken in _his_ head – Jace hadn’t heard.

   Great.

   The floor of the hall was made up of alternating bronze and dark red squares, like a chessboard of gold and garnet. But in front of the table there was a larger square – black, and marked with a design of silver stars. Hoping he wasn’t wrong and that stepping on the square actually meant death, Simon made himself walk onto the middle of it, his hand clenched tight on Simiel, and raised his chin. “All right,” he said quietly. “I’m here.”

   Without a dramatic pause, the Brothers made a sound – a horrible, spine-chilling sound, something like a ghostly moan. As one they lifted their hands and flung back their hoods, baring the terrible scarred pits of their empty eye sockets, and Simon’s knuckles went white on his seraph blade.

   _When all other lights go out,_ he thought, frantically trying to distract himself from the sick nausea curling into a fist in his stomach. Jace wouldn’t let these people hurt him.

   It was probably not a good thing that that was what his mind leapt to when he was afraid.

   _*The Council greets you, Simon Fray,*_ he heard, and this time it was not just one silent ‘voice’ – there were a dozen of them, all different, and all of them pressing against his mind like ravenous zombies beating against fragile glass, hungry for –

   _That’s it, no more zombie flicks for you,_ he told himself frantically. “ _Stop_ ,” he ordered – and Simiel’s light flared at his side, like Eärendil against Shelob, bright and silvery as elven starlight against the dark and the pressure in his head. He heard Jace hiss with surprise behind him, felt the cacophony in his mind cut off as suddenly as a flipped switch, and Simon’s body hummed, thrumming with the same electricity he’d sensed in Brother Jermiah’s runes, golden and fiery.

   _*If you do not want our help, there is no need for this,*_ a voice said after a moment of tense silence. _*You are the one who asked for our assistance, after all.*_

   “You want to know what’s in my head as much as I do,” Simon answered, and the sound of his own voice amazed him – firm and clear, completely at odds with the nervous almost-fear drying out his mouth. “If you want in, be careful about it. And warn me first.”

   One of the Brothers – a man sitting in the centre seat, so Simon assumed he was someone important – steepled his fingers beneath his chin. _*It is an interesting puzzle, admittedly,*_ he said, in a calm, neutral voice. Simiel’s glow did not falter, steady and strong and strangely comforting. _*But there is no need for the use of force.*_

   Simon wondered if they were referring to whatever it was that Simiel was doing. They were out of luck if they were, because Simon had no idea how to make the light stop.

   _*Especially if you do not resist,*_ the man added.

   _They say that to rape victims too,_ Simon nearly snapped, but he bit his tongue. _This is for mom,_ he reminded himself. If there was the slightest chance that something in his head could lead them to rescuing Jocelyn, then he could bear it. He closed his eyes, and saw through his eyelids that Simiel’s bright glow faded softly as he made himself relax, forcing himself to ignore his surroundings in favour of remembering his mom. Movie nights, alternating romantic comedies with comic book adaptions, and neither of them ever admitting that they secretly enjoyed the other’s genre. Coming home from school to the smell of paint and scented candles. Going to the library when he was seven years old, because neither of them knew why the sky was blue and Simon wanted to know.

   _Love you, Simon._

_Love you too, mom._

   Simon took a breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

   The first brush of contact came instantly, a gentle touch like the sweep of a feather against his mind. _*State your name for the Council.*_

Did they mean out loud or in his head? He hesitated, then thought it. _Simon Fray._

More voices. _*Who are you?*_

_I’m Simon. My mom is Jocelyn Fray. I live at 807 Berkeley Place in Brooklyn. I’m seventeen years old. My father’s name was –_

   His mind exploded like a crystal ball hurled to the floor, a whirlwind of fragments and razor-sharp shards howling around and through him, searing across the back of his eyelids –

   _His mother hurrying them both down a street at night between mounds of dirty snow. A lowering sky, gray as steel, the silhouettes of naked trees. A coffin being lowered into dirt._ Ashes to ashes. _His mom wrapped in her favourite patchwork blanket, worn and soft; tears streaked her face as Simon came into the room and she quickly closed a familiar box and shoved it under her pillow. The initials on the lid seemed writ in gold:_ J. C.

   The memories – if that’s what they were – came even faster, until it felt he was being slashed to pieces by fragments of flying glass. _He stood at the top of a staircase, and Luke was there, long-haired with a beard, his green duffel at his feet as Jocelyn shook her head. “I thought that you were dead.” Simon was in a park, surrounded by tiny green faeries like delicate dolls, glimmering like jewels and dragonflies; he reached for one and Jocelyn snatched him up with a cry. Winter again, black night and ice. A granite doorway, a hand under his chin, words and words and fire, he smelled smoke and heard his mother sobbing; a man with silvery blond hair swung him in the air and Simon laughed with delight, clapping chubby hands –_

   And then it all stopped dead, sudden as a slamming door. The words MAGNUS BANE leapt out at him as if the door were covered in graffiti, great big blazing letters that blinded his brain.

   Pain crashed through his right arm, and Simon cried out. Light burst, not in his head but outside it as Simiel lit up like a flare and Simon slashed with the blade without thinking, tearing through the darkness into consciousness. Something cold was pressed against his right side; when he opened his eyes he saw silver stars, shining brightly in Simiel’s light.

   He was lying on the floor, and for a moment all he could think was _how the hell did I get here?_

   _*The block inside your mind is stronger than we had anticipated,*_ Brother Jeremiah said as Simon sat up carefully. His elbow was bleeding, and there was already blood on his shirt. Jace’s eyes were locked on him, every line of his body taut and almost vibrating with the force of holding himself back; Simon saw in a glance how badly the blond wanted to go to him. But maybe it was one of those things that wasn’t done. _*It can be safely undone only by the one who put it there. For us to remove it would be to kill you.*_

Simon climbed hastily to his feet, gingerly cradling his arm. “But I don’t know who put it there,” he said, trying to be reasonable. Trying to rein in the frenzied knot of adrenalin and panic and pain-shock twisting in his chest like a nest of razor-wire.

   _*The answer to that is woven into the thread of your thoughts,*_ Jeremiah told him. _*In your waking dream you saw it written.*_

   “Magnus Bane?” Was that even a name? It sounded vaguely familiar, as if he’d heard it somewhere before – but if it was tied to the block on his memory, he might never remember what it meant.

   _*Yes.*_

   The Silent Brothers rose to their feet, eerily in sync, as clear a dismissal as Simon had ever seen. They nodded at Jace – the gesture some mixture of acknowledgement and respect – before they simply walked away and vanished into the forest of pillars. Only Jeremiah remained. He watched without eyes as Jace half bolted to Simon.

   “Is your arm all right? Let me see,” he demanded, grabbing Simon’s wrist.

   “Ouch! Careful with the merchandise!” But Simon allowed Jace to examine the injury. Simiel’s light softened away to nothingness as Jace touched him.

   “You bled on the Speaking Stars,” Jace said. Simon was confused for a moment, before he saw the blood on the black marble square, a smear of it obscuring a couple of the shining stars. “I bet there’s a law somewhere about that.” He turned Simon’s arm over, so gently that it made Simon’s breath catch in his throat – the sudden tenderness so utterly disorientating after the madness of the last few minutes.

   Jace bit his lip and whistled. Simon glanced down and felt the pit of his stomach drop out: his forearm was sleeved with blood as if with red silk. He didn’t need to look to feel each throb of pain pulsing through the stiffening limb.

   “Is this where you start tearing strips off your t-shirt for bandages?” he joked a little weakly.

   “If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked.” Jace pulled out his stele. “It would have been a lot less painful.”

   “I doubt it. Your ego probably would have exploded, killing me instantly.” He braced himself, remembering the burn of the stele from Dorothea’s apartment. But this time there was only a soft warmth as the glowing wand gently brushed over his arm.

   “There,” Jace said with satisfaction. Simon flexed his arm and couldn’t stop himself from gaping; he was still bloody, but the pain was completely gone, the stiffness melted away and the wound closed. “And next time you’re planning to injure yourself to get my attention, just remember that a little sweet talk works wonders.”

   “Only if you keep the pin in your ego grenade,” Simon parried. It was nearly automatic by now. He stretched his fingers and felt himself grin like an idiot. _Christ on a T-Rex, that is_ awesome. “Thanks.”

   Jace returned the stele to his pocket without answering, but Simon caught the gratified curve of his mouth as he turned away. “Brother Jeremiah,” he said loftily, “you’ve been very quiet all this time. Surely you have some thoughts you’d like to share?”

   _*I am charged with leading you from the Silent City, and that is all.*_

   “We could always show ourselves out,” Jace said hopefully. “I’m sure I can remember the way – ”

   _*The marvels of the Silent City are not for the eyes of the uninitiated,*_ Jeremiah interjected. Simon wondered if that was supposed to be a joke. The initiated didn’t _have_ eyes. _*This way.*_

   The journey to the surface seemed to be much quicker than the journey down, and when they finally emerged under the sunlight Simon willed his seraph blade back into its unextended form, dropping it into his pocket and stretching his arms – one still bloody – up above his head. “We’re aliiiiiive,” he sang, ridiculously relieved to feel fresh air again.

   Jace shot him an amused look. “It’s going to rain,” he pointed out.

   “I don’t care. I’m going to dance in it.” But he lowered his arms. “Are we taking the Death Coach back to the Institute?”

   Jace glanced from Brother Jeremiah, standing as still as the angel statue (which Simon was keeping in the corner of his vision, thank you very much), to the carriage, looming like the European demon coach that foretold death like a banshee. Then he grinned, wicked and golden. “No way,” he said. “I hate those things. Let’s hail a cab.”

*

   “Turn left! _Left!_ I said to take Broadway, you brain-dead moron!”

   The taxi driver jerked the wheel so hard in reply that Simon was thrown against Jace. Simon could only laugh, embarrassed by Jace’s rudeness but also helplessly amused by it, and it took him a second to realise that he was half in Jace’s lap.

   The blond’s eyes gleamed, and Simon scurried backwards hastily.

   “Why are we taking Broadway, anyway?” he asked, grasping his seat tightly.

   “I’m starving,” Jace said. “And God only knows what there is at home.” He took his phone out of his pocket easily, as if he were sitting in a perfectly calm armchair somewhere and not being spun about like a Rotor amusement ride, and dialled. “Alec! Wake up!” he shouted, and Simon jumped. He could faintly hear an annoyed voice at the other end. “Meet us at Taki’s. Breakfast. Yeah, you heard me. Breakfast. What? It’s only a few blocks away.”

   Simon waved to get his attention. “Tell him to bring my bag,” he mouthed. Jace frowned, but complied. “Get going,” he added, and ended the call with a snap of his wrist.

   He vanished the phone into one of his pockets as the cab pulled to a sudden stop. Jace handed over their fare while Simon leaned his hands against a brick wall and focussed on standing upright. He would, he thought vaguely, have to wash his arm – the healing rune had done nothing for the blood on it, and he didn’t need people staring. The cab pulled away and Jace stretched like a cat. “Welcome to the greatest restaurant in New York,” he declared proudly.

   It was distinctly unimpressive. The sign bearing its name flickered with dying neon, and hung so far sideways that Simon wasn’t sure it was safe to walk under it. The building itself reminded him of the cake Jocelyn had baked for his sixth birthday – close to collapsing, as if it hadn’t risen properly. Baking was not, they had discovered that day, in his mom’s repertoire.

   “What are you smiling at?” Jace asked, and Simon started.

   “Nothing. Just remembering something.” Taki’s had no windows, he noticed belatedly. Wasn’t that incredibly weird? “You know this place kind of looks like a prison, right?”

   “Ah!” Jace pointed at him. “But in prison could you order a spaghetti _fra diavolo_ that makes you want to kiss your fingers? I don’t _think_ so.”

   Simon felt his lips twitch, but sighed. “I’d rather be trying to find Magnus Bane than eating spaghetti.”

   “He’s a warlock,” Jace said. “Must be, to have placed that block in your mind. Which means he’ll be known to someone. Hodge might even know him, if he’s worked with the Institute before. We’ll find him.”

   “Hey!” Alec looked as if he’d rolled out of bed and very nearly walked out the door in his pyjamas. His hair stuck out wildly, unbrushed. Like the jeans at Vatican last night, it made him look more human and less of a pretty cyborg. But Simon withdrew the thought when Alec proceeded to pretend Simon didn’t exist. “Izzy’s on her way,” he said, looking only at Jace as he handed over Simon’s backpack. “She’s bringing the mundane.”

   Simon and Jace both frowned. “I’m right here,” Simon pointed out, accepting his bag from Jace.

   Alec’s eyes didn’t so much as glance at him. Simon wasn’t sure whether he wanted to sigh or slap him. “The one from last night. The girl.”

   “ _Clary?!_ ”

   Jace and Simon stared at each other, startled – they’d both said it at the same moment – until Simon shook his head with frustration. “What’s she doing here?” he asked, bewildered.

   “She showed up first thing this morning, babbling something about coffee.”

   _Coffee?_

   When Simon remembered, he slapped himself in the forehead. “I am _such_ an idiot!”

   “We already knew that,” Alec commented.

   “If you’re going to talk to me you may as well look at me,” Simon snapped. “You can’t _half_ pretend I don’t exist.” _Coffee_. The safe-call. He’d never texted Clary either of his safe-call words. _Coffee_ had been the red-alert word, the one he should have sent if he was in trouble. Instead he’d never sent anything, something he’d never done before. “Damn it, she probably thinks you murdered me and left my body in a ditch.”

   “That’s ridiculous,” Jace scoffed. “If I was going to hide a body, I’d just leave it on Staten Island. Where would I find a ditch in the city?”

   Simon barely heard him. _Clary_. After last night. God, he’d forgotten all about it. How was it possible that he’d gone all night, and all morning, without once thinking of the crushing blow he’d been dealt the night before? Or about the girl he loved?

   “Are we going in or what?” Alec asked. “I’m starving.”

   “Me too,” said Jace. “I could really go for some fried mouse tails.”

   “Some _what?_ ” Simon turned to stare, sure he’d misheard.

   Jace just grinned.

   Taki’s interior was completely at odds with its outward persona. Despite the lack of windows it was brightly lit, illuminating snug wooden booths lined with comfortable cushions. The crockery on the counter was mismatched, with cups and jugs and plates that had clearly not begun life as a single set – but they seemed quite happy to be together now, like good friends that only find each other late in life. A blonde waitress behind the counter waved at Jace as they came in, her pink and white uniform spotless, and gestured for them to sit where they liked. Jace and Alec moved so unhesitatingly to a booth at the back that Simon knew this was a regular pit stop for them.

   Simon followed, and wondered what Clary would think of the rest of the clientele – the stunning Indian girl with shimmering golden wings extending from her back, and the boy beside her with blue dreadlocks. Christ in high heels, what was he going to do about Clary? Would she go home, or insist on staying? Or go home but insist on Simon going back with her?

   How was he supposed to face her?

   Jace slid into the booth, and Alec took the seat next to him before Simon could. It was a sharp, sudden reminder that despite how close he’d felt to Jace in the Silent City, Alec was the one with the claim, and Simon sat down opposite the two of them a little shaken. His bloody arm was a dark stain on the homey golden wood of the table, another stark reminder. “Where’s the bathroom?”

   Alec pointed – no doubt glad to get rid of him – and Simon got up without another word, his heart pounding strangely. The toilets were very clean, lacking the grimy corners and dubious stains Simon had seen in even the best restaurants, on those rare occasions that Luke splurged and took them somewhere nice.

   It was hard to believe that the same man who’d taken Simon and his mom to Jean Georges for Jocelyn’s thirty-fifth birthday had been so quick to abandon Simon once this started.

   Simon scrubbed the blood from his arm and tried not to think about it, about Luke telling Valentine’s men that Jocelyn was nothing to him. _We have a lead now_ , he told himself. _We’ll find Magnus Bane, we’ll get the block removed..._

   And if there was nothing in his head to lead them to Valentine?

_There has to be._

   When he got back to the table, Isabelle and Clary had appeared. Simon felt his gut and throat go tight, and he felt wobbly for a moment, as if his legs had turned to rubber. He did not want to sit down next to her. He didn’t want her to see him, didn’t want to talk to her; he thought of _Crush_ and wanted to gag with humiliation. But the Shadowhunters were all ignoring her, excluding her from their conversation, and her spine was so straight as she read – or pretended to read – the menu. Despite everything it made Simon hate the Nephilim a little bit – maybe more than a little.

   Defiantly, he walked over and sat down beside her, pretending that his heart wasn’t racing. “Hey.”

   She glanced up at him, startled. The slightly nervous, awkward tilt of her smile made his stomach twist. “Hi.”

   Desperately he cast about for something to say. “Not that I’m not impressed, but how did you manage to find the Institute?” he asked her.

   She peered at the menu. “Your mom installed a tracking app on your phone ages ago,” she said simply. “She gave me the password for it. When I checked it, that’s where you were.” She flicked him a frown. “But you were gone by the time I arrived.”

   “Sorry,” he apologised. He was reeling a little. A tracking app? “Why did she give you the password?”

   “Probably because I’m the responsible one,” she replied archly. She frowned at the menu. “Who eats whole raw fish?”

   “Selkies,” Jace said coldly. Silence fell like a stone; the Shadowhunters’ conversation stopped dead. “The occasional nixie. Kelpies.” He tilted his head. Simon thought of Castiel, but Cas’ head tilt was generally bewildered and always adorable; Jace was cold, his eyes hard gold coins. He looked as though he were considering a target, as if he were staring at a practise dummy he meant to disembowel, and not a real, living person. “Do you know what a kelpie is?” he asked, coolly curious.

   “Jace,” Isabelle said softly, but Jace didn’t blink.

   “No,” Clary said finally. “I don’t.”

   Jace smiled, and Simon felt a chill run down his spine. “It’s a kind of faerie creature,” he said softly. “It looks like a beautiful horse, and it waits down by the water. A lake, usually. It waits for little girls, because they tend to like horses, don’t they?”

   Simon did not see this story ending well. He didn’t like the velvety tone of Jace’s voice; it sounded like a knife coming out of a sheath. But like Clary, he was hypnotised, frozen like a mouse before a snake.

   Jace looked away from Clary, dropping his gaze as he toyed with a fork. “And when the girl climbs onto the back of the pretty horsie, she finds that she can’t get off again. That’s the power of a kelpie, you see; to hold you to its back so you can’t move. So that you can’t free yourself when it jumps into the water. You can only watch the surface get further and further away from you as the kelpie drags you deeper, until you drown.”

   There was dead silence. Jace looked up at Clary, and smiled again. “Do you like horses?”

   Simon stared, stunned past words. Even Alec and Isabelle looked shocked.

   “No, actually,” Clary said. She stared at Jace without flinching, her jaw tight and her eyes sparking. “I don’t. And I don’t like unicorns, either, or princesses, or pathetic blond _twinks_ who – ”

   “Know what you’re having?” a bright voice interrupted. It was the waitress from behind the counter, and up close her smile was full of sharp little teeth, like needles.

   “ _Yes_ ,” Isabelle said firmly, before anyone else could deny her. “I will have one of your fabulous apricot-plum smoothies with extra honey.” She glared around the table, daring any of them to misbehave. “What do the rest of you want?”

   “Blondie’s head on a stick,” Clary muttered under her breath, and Simon choked.

   “The usual,” Jace said carelessly. He didn’t respond to the girl’s smile.

   “Me too,” Alec added. There was no smile for him.

   Clary lowered her menu. “Could I try the coconut pancakes, please? With a coffee?”

   “Sure thing,” the girl said, writing it all down. She turned to Simon, and he saw that her eyes were solid blue – no pupils or whites at all. “And what about you, sweet cheeks?”

   Everyone stared at her. _Simon_ stared at her. “Uh...” Jace looked _furious_ ; Simon hastily looked back down at his menu, which he’d barely glanced at. Which meant that he only now saw that Taki’s did indeed offer raw fish, as well as various kinds of raw meat and animal blood, and something called a toasted bat sandwich. But not, apparently, anything normal. “Um...” Where had Clary found the pancakes?

   The blue-eyed girl grinned. “Human food’s on the back, cutie.”

   Between Clary next to him and Jace and Alec on the other side of the table, Simon felt like begging her to stop with the pet names. “Thanks,” he said instead, wishing the earth would swallow him up. “Um, could I have some cinnamon waffles, please?”

   “Whatever you want,” she purred. “Anything to drink?”

   “Coffee, please,” Simon said hastily.

   “ _Well_ ,” Isabelle said lightly when the girl was gone. “I haven’t seen Kaelie that friendly since she was stepping out with _you_ , Jace.”

   Jace shot her a dirty look.

   _Who says ‘stepping out’?_ Simon wondered. He glanced sideways at Clary and tipped his head meaningfully. _You okay?_

   She huffed through her nose and rolled her eyes. _It would take more than some Buffy-wannabe to freak me out._

   Simon couldn’t get it out of his head, though. It had been so unexpected – where the hell had it come from, that sociopath smile? He refused to meet Jace’s eyes when the blond tried to gain his attention; he was furious with him, for all but _threatening_ Clary. That was – he couldn’t even –

   If Simon was honest with himself, though – and he didn’t like it, felt horrible admitting it even in the privacy of his own head – he felt hurt, and betrayed, and _confused_. _That’s not the Jace I know_.

   _And how long have you known him for?_ His mental Clary asked reasonably. _A few days. You DON’T know him. You don’t know him at all._

   “So how did it go at the Bone City?” Isabelle asked, when it became apparent no one else was going to speak. “Did you find out what’s in Simon’s head?”

   “We got a name,” Jace said. He sounded perfectly normal now. _How do you know? You don’t have enough data to establish his ‘normal’._ “Magnus – ”

   “Shut _up_ ,” Alec hissed, smacking Jace with the side of his hand.

   Jace rubbed his arm aggrievedly. “Jesus, what’s your problem?”

   “This place is full of Downworlders. You know that. I think you should try to keep the details of our investigation secret.”

   “ _Investigation?_ ” Isabelle laughed. “Now we’re detectives? Maybe we should all have code names.”

   “Don’t say it,” Simon warned Clary under his breath. She grinned at him.

   “Good idea,” said Jace. “I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein.”

   Alec choked on his drink; Clary raised her eyebrows. “Will you be wanting Pussy Galore as a side-kick?”

   Simon laughed.

   Jace scowled. “Let me out for a second,” he told Alec, who obeyed without protest. Simon tried not to watch Jace go over to Kaelie by the bar, but something in him twisted at the bright, blinding smile he gave her.

   He went to put his arm around her, but Kaelie pushed him away with a laugh and vanished into the kitchen.

   “He really shouldn’t bother the waitstaff,” Isabelle said with a sigh.

   Alec was watching Jace too, and damn it, what was Jace doing? Flirting with an ex right in front of his boyfriend? Simon hoped that Jace was just trying to keep up appearances, but really, it was starting to add up, all the times Jace had treated Alec callously, dismissed him. Even Simiel – _especially_ Simiel – had been a knife through Alec’s heart. Almost literally.

   _This is not someone you should be falling for,_ Simon told himself, feeling sick.

   “You don’t think he still likes her?” Alec asked.

   “She’s a Downworlder,” Isabelle said with a shrug, as if that explained everything.

   But Simon was on edge, and more than happy to pick a fight. “So?”

   Isabelle raised an eyebrow at him. “So what?”

   “This whole Downworlder thing,” Simon said. “You don’t hunt them, you have these crazy important alliances with them – which means your law sees them as people, because that’s basic contract law right there, if they think you’re sub-human you can’t enter into contract with anyone. But they’re not good enough to date?”

   Alec looked shocked. “You don’t _date_ Downworlders.”

   “You sleep with them,” Isabelle added. “But you don’t bring them home to meet the parents.”

  “Why not?” Simon demanded. “Clearly they’re people, so what’s the big problem?”

   “They’re just...” Alec looked uncertain.

   “They’re different from people,” Isabelle said lamely.

   “Oh, like mundanes then,” Simon said sarcastically.

   Jace slid in next to Alec. “What about mundanes?”

   “No,” Isabelle said thoughtfully. “You could turn a mundane into a Shadowhunter. I mean, we came from mundanes. But you could never turn a Downworlder into one of the Clave. They can’t withstand the runes.”

   Simon resisted the urge to throw up his hands. “So the fuck _what?_ ”

   Their food arrived before anyone could reply, Kaelie skilfully balancing everyone’s plates on her arms. Possibly she was using some kind of magic, because Simon couldn’t see how else she kept from dropping them all as she deftly placed them on the table. “I’ll be right back with your coffee,” she told Clary and Simon, and vanished again.

   “I told you it was the greatest restaurant in Manhattan,” Jace said, picking up fries with his fingers. Simon ignored him – but it was true that his waffles looked and smelled incredible, and tasted even better when he took a bite. Only when the cinnamon burst over his tongue did he realise that he was starving.

   Kaelie returned with a small tray, bearing coffee and a small jug of syrup. “There you go, guys,” she said, setting them down. “Can I get you anything else?” She was looking at Simon as she said this, and he made himself smile, feeling Jace’s eyes on him.

   “Actually – ”

   “Does the name Magnus Bane mean anything to you, Kaelie?” Jace interrupted, and she turned her solid blue eyes to him instead.

   “Jace!” Alec hissed. “We said we’d keep it quiet!”

   “No, _you_ said that. I never agreed to it.”

   But Kaelie was nodding. “Oh, sure! He’s a warlock over in Brooklyn – he throws these absolutely _insane_ parties. There was this one time, about two years ago – ”

   “What are you doing?” Clary asked as Simon started tearing through his bag, his heart pressing itself up against his ribcage. “Simon?”

   “I – last night, somebody gave me – ” _Parties._ The invite. Christ, he was so stupid – how had he forgotten? No wonder the name had seemed so familiar! He felt the parchment-like card against his fingertips and snatched it, slamming it down triumphantly on the table. “There!”

   Everyone peered at it. Kaelie grinned widely. “You’re going too?” she asked, plucking her own invite from the pocket of her apron to show him. “I guess I’ll see you there, handsome.”

   Simon was too ecstatic to do anything but grin back at her. “Only if I don’t see you first.”

   She laughed and left them to attend to the couple that had just walked in.

   “What is it?” Clary asked. Jace picked it up with his fingertips, handling it as if it were an undeveloped photograph – carefully, holding just the edges.

   “It’s a party invitation,” he said, apparently stunned enough to forget that Clary was hiding ichor beneath her freckles. “Where the hell did you get this?”

   “This – person at Vatican. He – she – um, they said they wanted us to play at the party.” Jace passed the little card around, and each of the Shadowhunters inspected it.

   “You mean your band?” Alec asked. Isabelle was reading the fine print on the invitation.

   “Is that safe?” Clary asked, glancing at Simon. “For the others, I mean? Are you going to tell them about all this?”

   “They said there’d be some magic thing to make the guys think it was a dream. So – no, I am not planning on telling them anything.”

   “Wait, you’re actually going to do it?” Alec asked.

   “I didn’t really get a chance to say no,” Simon said. “Which means they’re expecting me, so – unless you tell me it’s dangerous, yeah, I thought we would.” He paused. “Although I haven’t asked the others yet.”

   Isabelle handed the invite to Clary. Her eyebrows went up. “It’s sparkly,” she commented.

   “That’s an invitation from the High Warlock of Brooklyn,” Alec said coolly.

   “So? It still sparkles like a Cullen.” She gave the card back to Simon. He took a closer look at it: it did indeed claim that this Magnus person was the High Warlock. Huh. Was that good or bad?

   “What’s a Cullen?” Isabelle asked curiously.

   “A very deadly kind of vampire,” Simon told her. “It kills you with the power of its angst.”

   Clary laughed, and Simon grinned at her.

   Isabelle smiled around the straw of her smoothie. “I guess we’re going to a party then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Hades quote is from the Disney animated Hercules movie. Which is a lot cleverer than I was able to pick up on at eight years old.
> 
> As mentioned in the previous chapter, Eärendil is the name of the light Galadriel gives Frodo (technically, it's the name of the star whose light is in the bottle she gives him). Shelob is the GIANT ASS EVIL SPIDER THING that tries to eat Frodo and Sam in Return of the King.
> 
> A note on Simon's memories: when the Silent Brothers attempt to unlock Simon's memories, he catches glimpses of things Clary doesn't and can't have seen in canon, because of when she was born. To allow for the ages of the characters AND accommodate the Accords happening when they do - all the teenage characters were born earlier in this fic than they were in canon. Simon was born BEFORE Jocelyn fled Idris; he was a baby, and he has one or two fragments of memory from that time. And that's all I'll say about that.
> 
> Finally - for a variety of reasons, throughout March this fic will be a two week break between updates. Chapter 14 will go up around 12th of March, and chapter 15 around the 26th. To keep up to date with what's going on, check out my tumblr: siavahdainthemoon.tumblr.com.


	14. Chapter 14

   It was just barely 09:30 by the time Simon finished his waffles, and since Magnus’ party was tomorrow night, that gave them all a ton of time to kill.

   “You should come back to the Institute with us,” Jace said outside Taki’s.

   Simon looked at him coldly, holding Jace’s serial-killer smile in his mind and refusing to forgive him for it. “I have stuff to do. I’ll meet you at the party tomorrow, how’s that?”

   Jace looked like he wanted to protest, but he bit it down. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

   Simon didn’t let himself look back as he and Clary left for the subway.

   “I’m so sorry I never texted,” he apologised as they found seats.

   Clary shook her head, dismissing it. “Just tell me what happened,” she ordered.

   It took the whole journey to describe the Silent Brothers and their deep, dark necropolis – not to mention what had happened down there. Clary listened intently without interrupting, and clearly Simon wasn’t explaining things well enough because she didn’t look nearly as freaked out as the whole experience deserved.

   “Those things you saw – what do you think they meant?” she asked when he was done. They were pulling into their stop, and both of them got up and moved to the doors.

   “When the Brothers were in my head? I don’t know. Stuff someone didn’t want me to remember, I guess.” Simon was wondering about it too. None of it seemed especially earth-shattering. He’d seen faeries in his memory, which meant that they were something someone was trying to hide from him – but they’d already known or guessed that someone had locked his Sight away. As for the rest... Snow, a blond guy, and a grave.

   Well, okay. The grave might be something dodgy.

   “Why do you think Magnus did it? I mean – is he the one who wanted to hide your memories? Or did someone make him do it?”

   Simon wondered how you made a warlock do anything he didn’t want to do. “I’ve no idea,” he said honestly.

   Clary accepted that. “But it’s a good thing, right?” she pointed out. “No one hides stuff that doesn’t matter. If someone blocked your memories, it means you know something important – something someone didn’t want anyone to know.”

   Simon stared at her. “You’re _brilliant_ , you know that?” He hadn’t thought of that before, but it was so _obvious_. He felt a surge of renewed hope: maybe he really _did_ have the secret to rescuing his mom inside his head. And if that was true – they would see Magnus, they would get him to remove the block, Simon would _remember_ – and they would find his mom.

   Clary smirked and tossed her hair dramatically. “It’s true, I’m awesome.”

   Without discussing it they’d made their way to Eric’s house, and Simon was already sketching out a possible set plan in his head. And if he was honest – a very big part of him was looking forward to this.

*

   “What do you mean, _we have a gig_?”  

   Oh, revenge was sweet. Simon grinned widely. “I mean,” he said, trying not to sound too gleeful, “ _we have a gig_. Tomorrow night in Brooklyn.”

   Eric tried to look unimpressed, but after only a second or two he broke into a grin. “All right, fine. But _you_ are explaining it to Matt and Kirk.”

   Swinging her legs on a stool, Clary stuck her hand in the air. “Can I do it?” she asked, and both boys laughed.

*

   Simon sat in a corner with his notebook while the guys and Clary discussed songs. No one had brought up _Crush_ , or Simon’s telling disappearance after their performance the night before, and Simon wondered if Matt and Kirk had taken the news that they were playing tomorrow with such grace because they didn’t want to upset him.

   But his mind was too full to think much about the ache in his chest each time he glanced over and saw Clary debating the pros and cons of _Dark to Dark_ with Kirk, the fierce brightness as she argued her points. He’d been so proud of her at Taki’s – and so mad at Jace.

   He went from tapping his pen against the page to scribbling with no graduation between the two; one moment one, the next, the other. The words came easily, the way they sometimes did; the kind of words that he would never say except on stage, with a mike in hand and Lint behind him. It was like the last time he’d seen Jocelyn, when he’d swallowed his bitterness down (and Christ, was he glad now that he had – how much worse would it have been if his last words to his mom had been hateful and horrible?), but now instead of keeping it in he bled it all over the page. Bitter, and mocking, and sarcastic; playful but with a sharpness underneath. He heard the music in his head as if it had been waiting for him, the perfect accompaniment for his pulse, and for the way his stomach clenched with an angry thrill at his own daring.

   It felt like it had been only moments, but when he looked up almost two and a half hours had gone by. He’d covered pages with notes and scribbles and viciously crossed-out lyrics, but as he stared at it, reading it back to himself, his grin grew wider and wider.

   Without letting himself hesitate, he got up, crossed to the table, and tossed his notebook down in the middle of their conversation.

   “I want to perform that tomorrow,” he announced.

   Kirk sighed. “I’ll get the coffee,” he said mournfully.

*

   There wasn’t much need to practise anything else in their repertoire – they knew most of it inside out and backwards – but music wasn’t that kind of balancing act. Resting secure in the knowledge that they knew all their other songs did not compensate for turning a brand _new_ song into something fit for audiences in a little over 24 hours.

   Because of course, Simon’s song wasn’t perfect. It was _good_ – maybe better than anything else he’d ever written in such a short time frame. But there were still tweaks to be tweaked and beats to be excised or inserted, input to be listened to and arguments to be had and, ultimately, four people had to memorise the words and music in a very short time.

   It was _awesome_. It was intense and fun and normal, just as Simon was beginning to give up on ever getting close to normalcy again. They shouted at each other and Kirk made paper airplanes out of their notes and they played a hundred and two slightly different variations and Clary ordered pizza because “When you’re like this you guys will starve to death before you remember a little thing like food.”

   “Food is for the weak!” Simon cried.

   “But pizza is for the gods,” Kirk pointed out.

   “True,” he conceded.

   Eric lifted his drum sticks above his head. “And then Clary said; Let there be pizza!”

   And there was pizza. And it was good.

*

   When they took a break for video games and more junk food (and sliced raw pepper, because Simon had cravings and he was missing his mom’s healthy snacks more than he ever thought he would), Clary came and sat next to him.

   For a minute or two neither of them said anything, just watched Eric and Kirk battle it out on Halo.

   “It’s not about us, is it?” Clary asked finally.

   “Your left, your left! _YOUR OTHER LEFT!_ ” Eric shouted.

   “What isn’t?” Simon asked.

   She turned to look at him. “The song.”

   “What – no! Oh, God, no. I swear, it’s not.” That she would think so had honestly not occurred to him. “I promise. No – no sort-of-breakup songs in our future. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

   She relaxed. “Good. I was worried that you were more upset than you seemed.”

   “I’m – ” Simon paused, choosing his words carefully. “I am upset. I’m sad. But if I’m being completely honest – not as much as I thought I’d be. There’s so much going on...I don’t have much time to think about it.” He looked at her – really looked at her, the way her hair fell in a messy ponytail down her back. This was the girl who’d broken into Luke’s house because she was afraid for Simon. This was the girl who, just that morning, had braved demon hunters to come and make sure he was okay. He didn’t think he could ever not love her.

   “But it’s not anybody’s fault,” he said quietly. “And I’d rather keep what we have than mess it all up crying white boy tears.”

   Clary nodded slowly. “Me too,” she admitted. “Although you don’t have to worry about white boy tears. If you were ever _that_ stupid, I’d just slap you until you came back to your senses.”

   He laughed. “That’s such a relief!”

   She grinned like the Cheshire cat and tucked her feet under her. “Get me more popcorn,” she ordered imperiously. “I have decided to allow you to be my love slave. Without the love.”

   Simon smothered a grin and stood up. “At once, my lady,” he said formally. When he took the popcorn bowl, he saw Eric and Kirk exchange a smile, and he wondered how much they’d overheard.

   Probably nothing. Halo could get _really_ loud.

*

   Clary and Kirk went home eventually, but the other three stayed up late into the night. They couldn’t play music – Eric’s parents were asleep upstairs – but they could talk about it, discussing the song and the reception they’d gotten at Pandemonium and Vatican, their hopes for the future. Fuelled by late-night mania and too much sugar, they competed to come up with the craziest predictions.

   “I want to be playing a concert on the moon by 2030.”

   “The moon? We’ll play to _Martians_ , in 20 _18_.”

   “On instruments made of cheese.”

   “Does that mean we’ll have to translate our songs into Martian-ese?”

   “I tell you we’ll be playing music on _cheese_ , and you’re worried about what language the songs are in?”

   Eric shrugged. “I don’t care. I just want to be filthy rich and have a Martian harem. Which reminds me!”

   He scrambled upright and vanished up the stairs out of the basement. Simon raised his eyebrows at Matt. “Do I want to know what Martian harems remind him of?”

   Matt thought about it. “Leia in _Return of the Jedi_?”

   Eric returned triumphantly bearing a brown envelope. “This is for you,” he told Simon, throwing himself back down on the floor amidst the sleeping bags. “From the manager at Vatican.”

   Bemused, Simon opened it – and stared at the flash of green. “What the hell?”

   Eric’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “They paid us! Did I not mention that?”

   “No, you forgot that part.” Simon couldn’t believe his eyes. There was $50 in here – and presumably they’d each gotten as much. $200, for a brand new band with no following? He’d heard stories of three person bands getting paid $75 – all together, not separately. “This is awesome! Did he say why he paid so much?”

   “ _She_ said they like to support newbies. Especially ones as good as us.” Eric preened, as if he was single-handedly responsible for the awesomeness that was Millennium Lint. Under the circumstances Simon was inclined to allow him his delusion. “I’m thinking we can expect future bookings.”

   “Let me get my datebook, we’ll have to make sure we’re free,” Matt deadpanned, and they all grinned at each other.

   “This is _awesome_ ,” Simon said again, because it bore repeating. “Look at us – on our way to fame and fortune! Next stop, the top!”

*

   They ran the song through a couple more times the next morning, once Eric’s parents left for work and Kirk was coaxed out of bed by the promise of Starbucks coffee. Which he had to grab and pay for himself, because Simon and the others were bastards like that. But by midday they were satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get.

   “And you really want to do this?” Eric questioned when they broke for lunch. “Play a brand-new song at some private gig?”

   “Yes,” Simon said firmly. “I really, really do.”

   _‘So who_ is _the song for?’ Clary had asked. ‘If it’s not about us.’_

_‘That would be telling.’_

   Matt shrugged. “It’s short, it’s simple, the lyrics aren’t that hard to remember...I think we’ll be okay.”  

   Clary came to play dress-up with them at nine, and this time Simon didn’t let himself be embarrassed. “Turn me into a knockout,” he ordered.

   She considered him. “Will you consider wearing contacts?”

   “No.”

   She grinned. “That’s the spirit, show the world that four eyes are sexy. Now, put on this, this, and this – not that! – and then come back for make-up.”

_Make-up?_

   Simon raised his eyebrows – and then saw the shirt she’d found for him. “This is not a shirt I ever meant to wear,” he said weakly.

   “It was in your bag, that makes it fair game. Go put it on.” She waved her hand dismissively, and then ran across to Kirk. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, you can’t wear that! No no no!”

   And that was how Simon came out to Clary. Well. At least that had been...easy.

   Clary shooed the others away from him when he was dressed. “Not until he’s done!” she insisted. Which made him sound more like a cake than a lead singer, but since he wanted a minute or two alone with her he didn’t protest.

   “So, um. You don’t mind?” he asked tentatively as she poked the top of her tongue between her teeth, carefully wielding the little eye-shadow pencil.

   She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Nope. Why would I care? None of my business who you like. Although,” she said pointedly, smudging the eyeliner with her fingertip, “I think I understand the song now.”

   His cheeks burned. This time he did open his mouth to protest – and shut it again. “Um.”

   In an act of mercy, she didn’t say anything else. They sat in silence as she did her thing, and Simon wondered if he was supposed to feel any different. He decided that he didn’t.

   Not until Clary let him see his reflection, anyway.

   He stared, and then leaned in closer. “That is me, right? You haven’t gotten Regina’s magic mirror to show me some crazy fantasy?”

   Clary beamed. “I’ll go get dressed. Don’t turn into a daffodil while I’m gone.”

   “Narcissus!” he called after her, but she only waved at him.

   He turned back to the mirror.

   The black converse he was wearing had neon-pink and highlighter-yellow stars over his ankles; they and the jeans both belonged to Eric, and Matt had handed over the leather jacket Simon had worn at Vatican. Kirk had produced glow-stick bracelets for all of them, and Simon had a matching necklace wrapped around his throat. Clary’s make-up had turned his eyes smoky and hot, even through his glasses, but the star of the outfit was definitely the shirt.

   White, on black. Innocuous. _Most likely to steal your boyfriend._

   He didn’t even remember packing it; he must have picked up two shirts at once, and this one had snuck into the bag hidden beneath another. Sebastian had bought the shirt for him as a joke, on the second day of the con where they’d met, but Simon had never worn it until today. It seemed too confrontational, too in-your-face, and if he’d never tried to hide the fact that he liked guys, well – he didn’t see how it was anybody else’s business, either.

   Tonight, though. Tonight he felt fucking confrontational. He grinned at the mirror, baring his teeth, and decided he liked it.

*

   “So you’re gay?” Matt asked, glancing at his shirt curiously.

   “Bi,” Simon corrected, and waited.

   After a pause, Eric asked “So, do these jeans make my ass look hot?” He posed, hands on his hips and grinning.

   “It would take more than jeans to make that happen,” Simon snarked, and grinned back as they laughed.

   “You tell him, Simon,” Kirk called.

   Eric pouted, and then turned to Clary. “What do you think?”

   She rolled her eyes and smacked the back of his head. “Get your drums in the van, idiot,” she said fondly.

   And that was that. At this rate, he was going to be insulted with how little everyone cared, Simon thought, amused.

   Clary’s arms were decked with glowing bracelets almost up to her shoulders when she joined them in the van. There had been no debate over whether or not she would come; Simon would have liked to see anyone try to stop her. Her jeans had deliberate holes at the knees and were tucked into the same buckled boots she’d worn at Vatican; her hair fell down her back like liquid fire. Simon tried to ignore the way the neck of her shirt swept low over her collarbone, baring the top of both her shoulders in a way that made her look simultaneously fragile and sexy.

   The black tribal-esque design on her shirt made him think of the Shadowhunters’ runes, and he wondered if she’d chosen it for that reason.

   “Where is it we’re going again?” Eric asked, and Simon read out the address on the invite for Kirk to plug into the app on his phone.

   “Got it,” he said triumphantly, and started reciting directions like a magic spell.

   They trudged along in the traffic, giving Simon plenty of time to grow nervous. He toyed with Simiel in his pocket. Would the guys really be okay at a warlock’s party? The person who’d given him the invite had promised they’d be fine – but what value was that? It wasn’t exactly a contract. But, he reminded himself, the Shadowhunters hadn’t said a word about it being dangerous. They hadn’t expressed the slightest concern when he’d said Lint was going – maybe getting mundane musicians wasn’t so uncommon. Maybe turning memories into dreams was common practise for the Shadow World – how else did they deal with the occasional mundane who managed to spot them?

  _They try and turn them into Shadowhunters. What else?_ That’s what they wanted to do with him – or at least, Jace had been very surprised to hear that Simon had no intention of joining their ranks.

   _Aaaand, let’s not think about Jace._

   Eric put the radio on, and Clary asked which tracks they would use if Lint made a demo disc. Simon grabbed at the topic gratefully, and soon they were all discussing it – playfully, but with a thread of excitement and hope that someday it might be something they really had to think about. That someday some agent might ask for their demo, and they could hand one over...

   The conversation carried through the journey, sliding easily from song tracks to ridiculous lyrics to imaginary album covers. Simon was laughing and relaxed when Eric finally announced that they’d arrived, and nerves slammed into him like a piano dropped from a window.

   _Here goes nothing._

   They emerged from the van onto a narrow street, surrounded by old warehouses, most of which had been converted into apartments and lofts; Simon could see signs of habitation in curtained windows and numbered trash cans. “Which one is it?” he asked.

   Matt consulted his phone, then pointed at a red brick building. “That one.”

   “Alright. I’ll go see where they want us to set up.” Simon said, trying to keep his voice casual. What kind of people went to a warlock’s party, anyway? And where were Jace and the others?

   “See if someone’ll come out and help!” Kirk called after him. “Eric’s drums are almost as heavy as his fat ass!”

   “Hey!”

   Simon grinned, mounting the steps up to the door. He had to admit, the place didn’t look very imposing; the entryway smelled like a gutter, and only one of the apartment buzzers had a name beside it. But since that name was BANE, Simon figured that that was the one he wanted, and pressed it.

   He was beginning to wonder if he should press it again when the door flew open.

   “Yes?”

   “I – um, Magnus Bane?” Simon guessed, a little stunned.

   A flicker of something that might have been recognition flickered through cat-slitted eyes and was gone. “I am he.” Magnus lounged against the doorframe, one eyebrow raised questioningly. A smirk flirted with his mouth as he looked Simon up and down. “I like your shirt,” he added.

   “I like your everything,” Simon blurted. Magnus looked only a couple of years older than Simon, but he was _gorgeous_ , all Asian-gold skin and lithe slimness, and the hand he ran through the soft black spikes of his hair flashed with jewelled rings. Silver buckles covered his black shirt, and his jeans hugged long, lean legs. His cat-eyes were ringed with dark charcoal glitter, and the lips that quirked at the sight of Simon’s daze were painted a sapphire blue.

   Magnus laughed. “Why thank you,” he grinned. “I hope you’re here for my party, now. I do so love to be surrounded by people with good taste.”

   Simon pulled himself together, hoping he wasn’t blushing. “I’m actually – I’m Simon, with the band?” He withdrew his invite and held it out. “Somebody told us to come play tonight.”

   Magnus’ gold eyes gleamed with interest. “Ah! Yes, I know who you are.” He leaned out of the doorway and peered from side to side. “But where are the rest of you?”

   Simon pointed over his shoulder. “We’ve got a van – is there anybody who could help us shift our instruments?”

   “But of course! Just give me a moment.” Before Simon could say a word Magnus vanished back inside, leaving the door open. He returned quickly, accompanied by a handful of pale men and women who looked far too slender to be much help. But Simon was willing to wait and see rather than protest.

   He stopped Magnus for a second. “Sorry,” he apologised to the raised eyebrows. “It’s just – my friends are – ” He hesitated. He still didn’t like the word _mundane_ , didn’t like the implication of _boring_ and _dull_ and _useless_. But would calling them ‘normal’ be offensive, if it implied Magnus and his friends were _ab_ normal? “ – not part of the Shadow World. That’s not going to be an issue, is it?”

   “Not in the slightest,” Magnus assured him. “We often have mundane entertainers – there are only so many times you can listen to banshee bands before you have to stab forks in your ears. They wail,” he explained, then waved a dismissive wave in the face of Simon’s confusion. “Suffice to say – I’ll take care of it. No harm will come to your bandmates, I promise.”

   Relieved, Simon led the way down the street to the van. The guys already had the back doors open, and Clary was directing everyone, pointing and commanding. The helpers Magnus had brought looked amused to be ordered about by a tiny redhead, but they shifted the drum set as easily as if it were made of cardboard, carefully lifting it out onto the street piece by piece.

   “Guys, this is Magnus,” Simon said. Magnus waved regally, like a royal to his subjects. Simon grinned. “And this is Eric, Matt, and Kirk. And Clary, who doesn’t play with us but keeps us whipped into shape.”

   “Charmed,” Magnus said, clearly amused. “If you’d all come this way, we’ll get you set up.”

   Simon noticed that the warlock unobtrusively touched the guys as they passed him – a fingertip to a shoulder, an arm – and he caught a flicker of something unreadable across his friends’ faces each time, there and gone almost too fast to see. But Clary must have spotted it too: she neatly side-stepped when Magnus reached for her.

   “I’d like to remember,” she said calmly. “If that’s alright.”

   Magnus glanced at Simon, and Simon nodded. “It’s fine. She knows all this stuff.”

   “As you like,” Magnus said breezily. “Now come. I daren’t leave the party for too long. God only knows what they’ll all get up to without supervision. Like kindergartners, you know.”

   Followed by the helpers bearing Lint’s instruments, Magnus led them all up a flight of much-abused stairs to his apartment. Whatever he had done to Eric and the others, they didn’t seem at all concerned by the glowing green stuff on the banister – or the strangeness of the crowd filling the huge loft Magnus gestured them into.

   Simon had to pause for a split second, just to drink it all in. There was almost no furniture, except for a few improvised pieces, like the bar that was made up of doors laid flat across metal garbage cans. A woman with surprisingly beautiful violet skin manned it with near superhuman speed, pouring neon coloured drinks with four arms. Some of her customers were almost as strange; a boy with shark-like teeth and wet hair was talking to a girl whose bare feet were webbed, both of them sharing a plate of raw fish. Simon saw crystal champagne flutes being filled with a red liquid too thick to be wine, and handed off to a group of women as pale as the ones who were carrying Lint’s instruments over to the makeshift stage at one end of the room.

   But at least the guys didn’t seem to be freaking out.

   Clary stepped closer to him, wide-eyed. “Is this all real?” she whispered.

   “Yep,” Simon whispered back.

   She was staring at the red drinks Simon had noticed a minute ago. “Are they drinking – ”

   “How do you want these?” One of the helpers – _vampires_ – asked Simon, appearing out of thin air. Simon smothered a yelp.

   “U-um, let me – ” Simon followed them over to the stage. “Eric, man, this okay?”

   Eric was inspecting his drum set critically. “Could you move it a little more that way?” he asked, pointing.

   Wordlessly, they did so, and Eric gave them a thumb’s up. “That’s great! Thanks.”

   “I think we’re good,” Simon confirmed, and his stomach gave a funny flip as the vampires exchanged grins. Those were _definitely_ fangs, oh Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.

   Magnus came over to check on them a few minutes later. “Do you have everything you need?”

   “Just wondering where the power outlets are?” Simon asked, stashing his backpack behind Eric’s drums. Eric had promised to keep an eye on it. “We need to plug most of these in.” But they’d yet to spot any plugs – although granted, this place was so packed they could barely see the _walls_ , never mind the tiny squares of an outlet.

   Magnus directed them to a handful, even producing some extension cords that came in handy. Quickly, Lint had no more excuses, but the Shadowhunters still hadn’t arrived and Simon was beginning to get a little worried. Clary sat on the edge of the stage, swinging her legs and sipping a drink that shone like emeralds; she looked perfectly content to stay there, and Simon was glad. He felt better if he could see her. Who knew what could happen if she got lost in this crowd?

   But where the hell was Jace? At this rate Simon would have to confront Magnus about his memories on his own.

   _Fine,_ Simon thought firmly, angrily. _I can do this on my own if I have to. I’ll show him mundanes can get the job done just as well._

   Eric gave the all-clear signal, and Simon touched two fingers to his temple in recognition. His stomach churned with nerves as he took the mike in hand – but there was an undeniable excitement in it too, and he found himself grinning out at the motley crowd. “Alright guys, you ready for some music?”

   A chorus of affirmation came back at him – some eager, some amused, some _get-on-with-it-already_.

   “Okay then. We’re Millennium Lint, and you’d better enjoy us!”

   They slammed into the first song, and they were off.

*

   Four songs later, Simon was starting to get nervous. The Shadowhunters still hadn’t shown up, and there was a great deal of interest in the redheaded girl sitting on the edge of the stage. Simon couldn’t help remembering that Magnus had promised safety for his _bandmates_ , not his _friends_ ; how safe was Clary from the girl with flowers and fireflies in her hair, who kept coming up to talk to her? What if it was the spell-thing Magnus had done that kept the guys safe? Clary had refused it.

   So had Simon, for that matter.

   When they wrapped up the fifth song, Simon was about to call a break so he could call Jace, when he spotted the damn blond in the crowd. He and the other two Shadowhunters seemed oblivious of the dirty looks the rest of the partygoers were giving them: they stood tall and straight, and Simon’s first reaction was an incredible relief. Jace would know how to deal with Magnus. He’d know how to protect Clary, even if Simon had to bully him into it. He’d –

   Furious with himself, Simon turned away from the crowd and caught Eric’s eyes. “Now,” he ordered.

   Eric’s eyebrows rose. “Now?” he echoed. “But I thought you wanted to keep it till the end?”

   Simon shook his head. “Changed my mind.”

   “You’re the boss.” With a shrug, Eric passed the message on to the other two while Simon returned his attention to the mike.

   “Hey guys,” he purred into the microphone, anger and defiance spinning into sex and mockery on his tongue. _Jace. Jace damn Wayland._ “This next song’s brand new – and it goes out to a very special blond who’s entered my life recently.” He smirked. “This one’s for you, baby.”

   Jace’s eyes whipped to him, wide and shocked. Simon ignored him as his bandmates led him in, beat by beat, and then –

 

 _“Let me suggest you do what you do,_  
And I will do what I do best.  
You know I've always been, resenting,  
Resenting every word you've ever said –”

 

   Every time he’d had to remind Jace that he was a mundane – that he didn’t _know_ about demons and runes and magic – didn’t understand – every time Jace had taken that smug pleasure in holding the knowing over his head –

  
 _“I load my words with care, and_  
Aim them, at the desperate,  
Just, to check they can still hear as my, innocence, disappears~”

  

   Bit by bit. Pandemonium, raveners, his mother’s disappearance – God, yes, fine, it was interesting and exciting, and for a while there he’d been crushing on Jace. _Fine._ But _his mom was gone_ , kidnapped by some psychopath. That wasn’t fun. That wasn’t fucking _cool_ , and as for Jace? The lies, and _Alec_ , and Simon hurled the words out, all sharp and mocking and _no, sweetheart, this isn’t a love song –_

 

_“I must be blind~  
To not have seen the signs~”_

 

 _Because I’ve never met anyone more obvious –_  
   “Such a pretty little thing,” he sang, thinking of Simiel, the sharp, weighted blade in his pocket, so fucking _innocuous_ , “ _So much prettier without me!”_  
   He hugged the mike with both hands, smirking and it felt so good, it felt fucking _fantastic_ to finally lash out in the way he was good at. He felt like laughing, could feel Jace’s eyes on him, everyone’s – it felt like having the bow in his hands, like watching the arrows fly one by one, but this time his weapons were words and he twisted them in like knives.

  
 _“Life's a bitch, but I'm friends with her sister –”_ Simon purred.  
 _“We talked it over and it's our~ little secret!_  
It's your world, I'm just trying to live in it –  
When you're done, maybe try a little listening!”

   They hurled into the next quick, biting verse, and Simon spun on the stage, laughing, taunting, feeling the rush of it and Eric’s drums under his skin. _You can’t have me_ , he sang without words, between the words. _I’m awesome and incredible and you cannot have me, because you’re a liar and a heartbreaker and I refuse to want you back._

  
 _“I smi-le_ at _all my enemies,  
I lead a _ life _of positivity!_  
I deflect curses thrown my way,  
I regret, not saying...  
  
“I must be blind~!  
To not have seen the signs~  
Such a pretty little thing,  
So much prettier without me!”

 

   He found himself pouting playfully as he slipped into the next few lines, heard the laughter in the crowd and grinned.

  
_“Oh when you~ decide~ to cut~ the strings~!  
When you~ decide~ to ruin, my summerti~me...!”_

 

   Simon fell silent, paused for Matt’s simple little riff, sought out Jace’s eyes in the crowd so that the next lines were _all_ for him, blown like a kiss on sarcastic wings. “We can be anything,” he promised, lied, his lips curved up and mocking even as, behind his mouth and in the music, it was more conflicted than that. _We will be nothing. Do you hear me? We will be nothing, because you are a liar and I’m too good for you. Because I don’t want to be a Shadowhunter, and I don’t mess around with other people’s boyfriends, and I hate you a little bit for making me want to._

 

 _“We can be anything, we can be what you like._  
We can be anything, we can be anything, we can be what you like.  
Oh, we~ can be~ what, you like~!”  


   He put his all into it – the way he always did, but this time there was anger, and fear, the wild rollercoaster of emotion since all this started. He sang his shock and disbelief about Simiel, his realisation of just what Alec was to Jace and how much Jace didn’t care. His confusion and his excitement, the thrills and the terror, the magnetised, breathtaking pull he felt whenever Jace entered the damn room. And his fury, his disgust, with himself and with Jace; his confliction, his want and his self-mockery, his sarcasm, his _no, no, fuck no._

Eric and Matt and Kirk sang with him, giving him the echo effect, and the three of them played off each other, swapping lines and lyrics and merging the two verses together – Simiel’s _pretty little thing_ and _ruining my summertime_. Because that was what it felt like – that was how it _all_ felt – something incredible and magical in his pocket, and a full-scale disaster, a living nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from, both at once. Blurring and mad and he didn’t know how to make it stop.

   Didn’t know, deep down, if he wanted it to.

 

_“Oh when you~ decide~ to cut the strings!  
When you~ decide~ to ruin, my summerti~me...”_

 

   The music trailed away, and the sudden absence of music filled Simon up like water in a glass. It sounded like a contradiction, to be so full of hollowness, but apparently it could be done, because the sense of triumph he’d expected was bitter and raw, like sour ginger on his tongue. He couldn’t look away from Jace’s blank, mask-like expression, and this wasn’t a proper gig – Lint was here for background music, to play a soundtrack for these people’s evening instead of performing to hold their attention. But now people were turning to look, because the music had stopped and he could feel Eric and the others staring at him, waiting-hoping for a cue, and Simon was all filled up on silence and golden eyes.

   Jace looked away first, turning and vanishing into the crowd, and Simon’s heart lurched. Without thinking about it he let go of the mike and jumped from the stage to the floor. He had no idea what he was planning, what he meant to say, only had the sharp, uncomfortable sense that he’d gone too far, crossed a line somewhere and ought to make it right, even if he had no clue how to do that.

   But it was Isabelle who found and caught him, like a hawk snatching a sparrow out of the air. She was _spitting_. “What in Raziel’s name was that?” she hissed, her gleaming fingernails digging into his wrist as she dragged him to one side.

   “A song,” he snapped at her, bristling. She was all silver, a long shimmery skirt and a top that clung to her skin, glittering with sequins like silver raindrops. Strands of matching beads clicked softly in her hair.

   “You sang at _Jace_ ,” she growled. “You called him _baby!_ What were you thinking?”

   “Maybe I’m sick of dancing around his feelings!” Simon looked past her, and when he realised he was searching for Jace he bit his tongue angrily. Damn it, he _hadn’t_ done anything wrong – it wasn’t as if the song had been brutal. It was ridiculous to feel guilty. “And sick of what he’s doing to Alec!”

   Isabelle froze. “How do you know about Alec?” she whispered, her eyes gone wide.

   He stared at her, confused and frustrated. “What are you talking about? They’re _parabatai_ , aren’t they?”

   “Well, yes, but – ”

   “So the Nephilim _are_ with you,” a familiar voice said musingly. “They claimed to be, but I wondered. How on earth did such a well-dressed young man get involved with _them?_ ”

   Simon was somehow unsurprised to find Magnus lounging against a nearby pillar. The warlock’s eyes were glazed and sleepy, but Simon was willing to bet he wasn’t nearly as indifferent or careless as he seemed. Not if High Warlock actually meant anything. “It’s complicated,” he sighed.

   “It usually is, with them,” Magnus agreed. He smiled at Simon, ignoring Isabelle. “Liking the party?”

   “It’s great,” Simon answered, pulling his wrist free of Isabelle’s grip. She glared at him. “What’s the occasion, anyway?”

   “My cat’s birthday,” Magnus said solemnly.

   Simon blinked, and automatically looked around, as if there might be a cat enthroned on a luxurious floating pillow somewhere. “Where is he?”

   Magnus pushed himself upright, his face grave. “I don’t know. He ran away.”

   “Um.” Simon had no idea how to respond to that. “I hope he comes back soon,” he said awkwardly. “I need to go find my friends now,” he added uncertainly, not sure how to excuse himself. Magnus waved him away and disappeared before the words were even out of Simon’s mouth.

   “Will you keep an eye on Clary?” he asked Isabelle hurriedly. “Thanks.” Before she could protest, he pushed past her and into the crowd, looking, again, for Jace. Some other source of music had been found, because people were dancing to it; Simon caught snatches of familiar lyrics and guessed that someone’s iPod had been hooked up to a speaker system. At least no one was giving Lint hassle about the sudden break.

   He found Jace by the bar, having exchanged his blank expression for a thoughtful one and a glowing green drink in a martini glass. Now Simon had found him, he wasn’t sure what to say, or even what to feel. Still, thoughtful was better than upset, right? Not, Simon reminded himself firmly, that Jace had any right to be upset. Simon had barely done anything, whereas Jace was toying with Alec’s heart and trying to hook Simon’s in the bargain. Or at least get him into bed.

   And still, Simon found himself asking “Are you okay?”

   Jace turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Why wouldn’t I be? Indrani here makes a truly fabulous – ” He paused and peered at his drink. “Well, whatever this is, it’s good.” He brought the glass to his mouth.

   Simon frowned at him, uncertain. “I just thought – ”

   “I’m sure whatever you thought was very entertaining,” Jace interrupted, “but we have a certain warlock to interrogate.” He finished his drink in one long swallow (Simon did not watch the line of his throat). “And while I personally find it hilarious, I think we ought to hurry things along before your friend ends up under the hill.”

   Confused, Simon followed Jace’s glance into the crowd. “What are you talking about?”

   “On the dance floor.” He pointed.

   Simon looked – and saw Clary. She was laughing, and for a second Simon’s heart gave a little pang, because her head was tipped close to the faerie girl from earlier, the one with fireflies glowing like little green gems in her hair, and the two of them were dancing so close –

   Hang on. A faerie _girl?_

   Simon looked away sharply, his head spinning. “Is that safe?” he asked, a little more sharply than he meant.

   Jace shrugged. “I don’t think she’s court fey, so as long as they don’t leave the party – probably.”

_“Probably?!”_

   Jace rolled his eyes and grabbed Simon by the wrist. Everyone was doing that tonight. “Come on – the sooner we get our answers, the sooner you can take Clary home.”

   “Isabelle said she’d look after her,” Simon muttered, ignoring the fact that no, Isabelle _hadn’t_ said so. But he didn’t resist as Jace tugged him along, although he did reclaim his hand. “You don’t go to parties much, do you?” he asked, taking in the blond’s all-black outfit for the first time.

   Jace gave him an incredulous look. “Really? We’re about to unlock who-knows-what in your hidden memories, and you want to discuss _clothes?_ ”

   Simon shrugged defensively. So maybe he was a little nervous. Just a little. The experience with the Silent Brothers hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, and he would be lying if he said he was looking forward to going through it again with Magnus.

   They found the warlock with the cat eyes talking to Alec, of all people. Simon took in Magnus’ body language in a glance, and the slip of paper he passed Alec with a smoothly elegant gesture – with two fingers, as if he were proffering a cigarette in a black and white film – and felt like throwing his hands up in the air as Alec accepted it. _That’s it, I give up._ That was very obviously a phone number, and Jace didn’t so much as blink at it, at Alec’s dazed, surprised expression or the faint blush tracing his cheekbones as he tucked the number away in a pocket. _Either Shadowhunters really ARE into polyamory or these two have some open-ended thing going on and that’s it, I am so freaking done._

   “Magnus,” he said firmly, bolstered by Jace’s presence, “if you’ve got a sec – ”

   “MAGNUS BANE!”

   Before Simon could continue, one of the vampires appeared out of the crowd, pointing a dramatically trembling finger at the warlock, whose only response was to raise an eyebrow. To be fair, the vampire was short, bald, and sporting a goatee; Simon wasn’t sure he would have taken the guy seriously either. “ _Someone_ has poured holy water into the gas tank of my bike. It’s ruined. Destroyed. All the pipes are melted.”

   “Melted?” Magnus murmured. “How dreadful.”

   “I want to know who did it.” The vampire bared his teeth, and Simon couldn’t help glancing at them, wondering which book or show had gotten it right. _Supernatural_ , he thought smugly at the sight of thin, needle-like teeth. Then he paused, imagining Jace cutting his arm with a machete to catch a vampire, the way Dean had in _Fresh Blood_ , back in season three. Hastily he shoved the thought away. “I thought you swore there’d be no wolf-men here tonight, _Bane_.”

   “I invited none of the Moon’s Children,” Magnus said softly, examining his glittering nails, “precisely because of your stupid little feud. If any of them decided to sabotage your bike, they weren’t a guest of mine, and are therefore...” He smiled. “Not my responsibility.”

   The vampire bellowed with rage, jabbing his finger at Magnus accusingly. “Are you trying to tell me that – ”

   Magnus’ glitter-dusted finger twitched, so slightly that Simon would have missed it if he hadn’t been waiting for something like it. Mid-roar the vampire choked, and clutched his throat with disbelieving fingers. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

   “You’ve worn out your welcome,” Magnus said lazily. His golden eyes had that sleepy, glazed look in them again, the one that screamed otherness and danger to Simon’s lizard brain. “Now go.” He spread his fingers, and the vampire turned about sharply, like a soldier in parade. He marched off into the crowd, heading towards the door, and Simon could do nothing but stare.

   Holy _Christ_.

   Jace whistled. “That was impressive.”

   “You mean that little hissy fit?” Magnus rolled his eyes. “I know. What _is_ his problem?”

   Alec made a choking noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Simon tried and failed to remember if he’d ever heard Alec laugh.

   “We put the holy water in his gas tank, you know,” Alec said.

   “ALEC.” Jace said. “Shut up.”

   “I assumed that,” Magnus drawled, clearly amused. “Vindictive little bastards, aren’t you? You know their bikes run on demon energies. I doubt he’ll be able to repair it.”

   Jace shrugged. “One less leech with a fancy ride,” he said. “My heart bleeds.”

   “I heard some of them can make their bikes fly,” Alec said, more animated than Simon had ever seen him. He was almost smiling – and at Magnus.

   The warlock’s eyes glittered. “Merely an old witches’ tale,” he said lightly. “So is that why you wanted to crash my party? Just to wreck some bloodsucker bikes?”

   The amusement was wiped from Jace’s face instantly. “No,” he said seriously. “We need to talk to you. Preferably somewhere private.”

   Magnus raised an eyebrow. Simon was starting to wonder if the entire Shadow World could do that. The overabundance of sass would explain a lot. “Am I in trouble with the Clave?”

   “No,” Jace said.

   “Probably not,” Alec assured him. Jace kicked him in the ankle. “Ow!”

   “No,” Jace repeated. “We can talk to you under the seal of the Covenant. If you help us, anything you say will be confidential.”

   Magnus considered them, the cat-slit pupils of his eyes resting on each of them in turn. “And if I don’t help you?” he asked finally.

   Jace spread his hands wide. It would have been a sign of helplessness – a _what can you do?_ gesture – if not for the stark, black Marks on his palms that were a stark, black warning. “Maybe nothing. Maybe a visit from the Silent City.”

   Magnus’ voice was razor blades buried in cotton candy. “That’s quite a choice you’re offering me, little Shadowhunter.”

   “Stop it,” Simon said harshly. He shook a little, as all three of them turned to him, but he pretended that he wasn’t. “For crying out loud, Jace, is that really necessary?” He looked at Magnus. “I’m sorry,” he said, forcing himself to be calm in the face of those inscrutable gold eyes. “We’re not – no one’s going to blackmail you. If you won’t help, then you won’t.” He took a breath. “But could you, please?”

   His voice broke, embarrassingly. The loud music felt out of place, confusing the thick intensity wrapping the four of them – Alec, Jace, Magnus, Simon – like a fog. Simon could hardly breathe for hoping, dreading. If the Magnus said no, they had no more leads for finding Jocelyn – the warlock could very well hold her life in his hands.

   “At least one of you has some manners,” Magnus said finally. “Fine. Come into my boudoir – I suspect this is a conversation I would not enjoy having overheard.”

*

   Magnus had decorated his bedroom as unapologetically as he had his person; the mattress on the floor was made up in lemon-yellow, the curtains obscuring the floor-to-ceiling windows were unabashedly rainbow striped, and although it was hard to tell under the hundred-and-one little bottles and jars of make-up, paint and perfume, the dressing table was neon blue.

   Simon felt the urge for sunglasses.

   “Nice place,” Jace commented. “Guess it pays well, being the High Warlock of Brooklyn?”

   “It pays. Not much of a benefit package, though. No dental.” Magnus shut the door behind him and leaned against it, folding his arms. The motion made his shirt draw up: the strip of toned golden stomach had no navel. “So. What’s on your devious little minds?”

   “I’m sorry about that back there,” Simon said, before Jace could jump in with the blackmailing again. “I – really. If it makes it any better, it’s nothing to do with them.” _Mom._ He swallowed, and swallowed his pride with it. “I’m the one who needs your help.”

   Magnus turned those inhuman eyes on him again. Simon held his mother in his mind like a talisman and bore it. “You are not one of them,” the warlock said after a moment. “Not of the Clave. But you can see the Invisible World.”

   “My mom was one of them. One of the Clave.” Simon took a deep breath. “But she didn’t tell me about it, and now she’s missing. Taken by Valentine.”

   “I don’t know any Valentine,” Magnus said, but something flashed across his features, there and gone, and Simon knew he was lying. “I’m sorry for your tragic circumstances, but I fail to see what any of this has to do with me. If you could tell me – ”

   “He can’t tell you anything, because he doesn’t remember,” Jace snapped. “Someone erased his memories. So we went to the Silent City to see what the Brothers could pull out of his head. They got two words. I think you can guess what they were.”

   Magnus stilled: for a moment, Simon wasn’t even sure the warlock was breathing. Until suddenly, his lips quirked bitterly. “My signature,” he said. “I knew it was folly when I did it. An act of hubris...”

   Simon blinked. “You _signed my brain?_ ” He paused. “Actually, that’s kind of cool.”

   Jace shot him a disbelieving look.

   Instead of answering, Magnus raised his hand, moving his finger like a pen through the air. It was like writing with a sparkler on New Year’s – lines of fire traced out the letters he drew, but instead of vanishing the way they would with a sparkler they hung there, bright and golden, casting light and shadows over Magnus’ face. MAGNUS BANE.

   “I was so proud of my work on you,” he said quietly, glancing at Simon. “So clean. So perfect. What you saw you would forget, even as you saw it. No image of pixie or goblin or long-legged beastie would remain to trouble your blameless mortal sleep. It was the way she wanted it.”

   Simon’s mouth was dry. “The way who wanted it?”

   Magnus sighed, and his breath blew out the flaming letters, turned them into ash. And Simon was not surprised, although he wanted to be, when Magnus finally said, “Your mother.”

 

* * *

 

NOTES

 

Regina’s magic mirror is from the tv show Once Upon a Time.

Clary telling Simon not to turn into a daffodil is a reference to the Greek myth of Narcissus - the boy who fell in love with his own reflection and was turned into a flower for it.

The reference to Dean and vampires is, obviously, from _Supernatural_.

The song in this chapter is Jaws on the Floor - You Me At Six


	15. Chapter 15

   “My _mom?”_ But Simon’s shock didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. Looking around, he saw pity in Jace’s eyes, in Alec’s – even Alec had guessed and felt sorry for him. They’d all seen this coming. “Do you know why?” Simon asked, glancing back at the warlock.

   “No.” Magnus spread his long golden hands. “It’s not my job to ask questions. I do what I get paid to do.”

   “Within the bounds of the Covenant,” Jace put in. His voice was soft as ashes, and had embers in it.

   Magnus dipped his head in ironic acknowledgement. “Within the bounds of the Covenant, of course.”

   Simon found his fingers curling around Simiel again. It should have been warm from its time in his pocket, but instead the crystal was cool against his fingertips, soothing like an ice-pack during a fever.

   It felt like he was standing in the hallway again, telling Jocelyn he would pack his bags when he came back; that same bitter sense of unfairness – and that same understanding. He got it. He didn’t need to think about it, to scream up a fit of teenage pique and demand answers: he _knew_. If his mom had worked to keep all this from him, then it was to keep him safe. And considering all that had happened since he discovered the Shadow World, he could hardly say she’d been wrong to do what she did, could he?

   He sighed, and pushed his glasses up so he could rub his eyes. Sometimes, he wished he wasn’t so mature, so damn _fair_. Teenage pique sounded really good right now. “Was there something specific she wanted me to forget?”

   Magnus moved over to the window. He looked restless, restrained, like a bird in a cage. “I don’t think you understand. The first time I ever saw you, you must have been about two years old. I was watching out this window – ” he tapped the glass “ – and I saw her hurrying up the street, holding something wrapped in a blanket. I was surprised when she stopped at my door. She looked so ordinary. So young.”

   Moonlight spilled through the windows and gilded him with silver. “She unwrapped the blanket when she came in my door. You were inside it. She set you down on the floor and you started running around, picking things up, pulling my cat’s tail – you screamed like a banshee when the cat scratched you, so I asked if you _were_ part banshee. She didn’t laugh.” He paused. Simon tried to pretend his heart wasn’t pounding, eager for these scraps of his past. Even Alec stared at Magnus as if hypnotised. “She told me she was a Shadowhunter. There was no point in her lying about it; Covenant Marks show up, even when they’ve faded with time, like faint silver scars against the skin. They flickered when she moved.” He knuckled the glitter make-up around his eyes, and Simon thought _I’ve never seen scars on mom._ “She told me she’d hoped you’d been born with a blind Inner Eye – some Shadowhunters have to be taught to see the Shadow World. But she’d caught you that afternoon, teasing a pixie trapped in a hedge. She knew you could _see_. So she asked me if it was possible to blind you of the Sight.”

   Jace and Alec hissed as one; Simon glanced at them, startled. Both Shadowhunters looked as if someone had threatened to stab a baby in front of them.

   Magnus continued without apology. “I told her that crippling that part of your mind might leave you damaged, possibly insane. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t the sort of woman who weeps easily, your mother.”

   _I know that_ , Simon thought fiercely, but didn’t say it.

   “She asked me if there was another way, and I told her you could be made to forget those parts of the Shadow World that you could see, even as you saw them. The only caveat was that she’d have to come to me every two years as the results of the spell began to fade.”

   “I’m guessing that she did,” Simon said. His voice sounded strange to his ears.

   Magnus nodded. “I’ve seen you every two years since that first time – I’ve watched you grow up. You’re the only child I have ever watched grow up that way, you know. In my business one isn’t generally that welcome around human children.”

   “You recognised Simon when he walked in,” Jace said. Simon had already thought it, already remembered the quick flicker that had run across the warlock’s face when he opened the door. “You must have.”

   “Of course I did.” Magnus sounded irritated, although with his face to the window Simon couldn’t see his expression. “And it was a shock, too. But what would you have done? He didn’t know me. He wasn’t supposed to know me. Just the fact that he was here meant the spell had started to fade – and in fact, we were due for another visit about a month ago. I even came by your house when I got back from Tanzania, but you were out. Jocelyn tried to call you, but you’d left your phone behind. I hadn’t been home yet, so I left, under the impression that your mother would be by with you in a few hours. But,” a graceful shrug. “She never came.”

   Memory sparked; the gorgeous man he’d glimpsed outside Dorothea’s apartment. Simon had been standing in the foyer with Clary. “I saw you,” he said slowly. “I remember your eyes.”

   Magnus preened. “I’m memorable, it’s true.” Then he shook his head. “You shouldn’t remember me. I threw up a glamour as hard as a wall as soon as I saw you. You should have run right into it face-first – psychically speaking.”

   “Simon’s Sight is very strong,” Jace said. Simon looked at him. “What? It is. You haven’t had any trouble seeing through glamours. It’s like you don’t even have to try.”

   “I didn’t realise,” Simon said slowly. It didn’t sound like a bad thing, but he couldn’t make himself feel excited. “I was right there,” he said, turning back to Magnus. “You saw me. Why didn’t you renew the spell then?”

   “Because it’s a delicate process, and I don’t kidnap my clients off the street,” Magnus replied testily. “Or out of foyers. And you were with a mundane. It would have been horribly complicated, and I had no reason to think such emergency tactics were required.”

   That made sense. “But you can take the spell off me now, can’t you?” Simon asked. “And I’ll remember everything?”

   “I can’t take it off you.”

   “What?” Jace demanded, furious. “Why not? The Clave requires you – ”

   “Jace, _shut up_ ,” Simon snapped. He ignored Jace’s surprise and focussed on Magnus. “Why?”

   Magnus had turned around to watch them, his inhuman eyes gleaming. Simon couldn’t tell what he thought about a Shadowhunter giving way to a mundane singer. Now, the warlock sighed. “Undoing a spell is a great deal more difficult than creating it in the first place. The intricacy of this one, the care I put into weaving it – if I made even the smallest mistake in unravelling it, your mind could be damaged forever.” He smiled thinly. “Besides, it’s already begun to fade. The effects will vanish on their own, over time.”

   Simon nodded slowly, considering this. “So I’ll get my memories back?”

   “I don’t know. They might come back all at once, or in stages. Or you might never remember what you’ve forgotten over the years. What your mother asked me to do was unique, in my experience. I’ve no idea what will happen.”

   _You might never remember._ Simon felt sick, gut-punched and stripped raw. Not because of the memories – he didn’t feel any loss there. How could he? You couldn’t miss what you’d never had, what you didn’t remember. So he didn’t remember pixies and unicorns: big fucking deal, he didn’t care. The void could have his memories.

   But his mom. _Jocelyn._ Simon had been praying to every god he knew that there would be _something_ in his head to help them find his mom – and now it didn’t matter whether there was or not, because they couldn’t get at it.

   They didn’t have any other leads.

   Jace put a hand on Simon’s shoulder, the motion uncharacteristically tentative. “They’ll come back,” he said quietly, and Simon wondered what was on his face, to make Jace sound so uncertain, to make him reach out like this. “It’s alright. It just might take a while – ”

   Simon stared at him incredulously. “Do you seriously think,” he asked, feeling despair catch fire into rage, “that I give _one single fuck_ about my memories?” Jace flinched away, something like hurt flashing across his face. Simon didn’t care. “I care about my _mom_ , you unbelievable – that was the only reason I wanted the block undone. I don’t care about not remembering. _How are we supposed to find her now?_ ”

   _Do you think Valentine_ listens _, when you mother begs him not to –_

   Simiel’s hard hilt bit into his palm. Simon wanted to scream.

   “All right, listen,” Magnus said suddenly, breaking the silence. “I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can give you something else. A piece of what would have been yours if you’d been raised a true child of the Nephilim.”

   _I don’t care about that!_ Simon wanted to shout. _Shadowhunters, Nephilim – they don’t matter! My mom matters!_ But he bit his tongue, watching as Magnus took down a thick book from the bookcase. Its cover was rotting, made of once-beautiful green velvet. Little pieces of it flaked off as Magnus turned soft, translucent pages of whisper-thin parchment.

   Jace let his hand fall from Simon’s shoulder. “Is that a copy of the Gray Book?”

   “Hodge has one,” Alec observed. Magnus, flipping pages, said nothing. “He showed it to me once.”

   _It’s not grey, it’s green_. Simon couldn’t bring himself to care. He sank down onto the mattress-bed, for once not caring about being rude. _Mom, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do._

   “Gray is short for ‘gramarye’,” Jace offered, as if dangling more strange knowledge could coax Simon out of his thickening despair. When Simon didn’t respond, Jace turned to the windowsill, brushing dust off it with his sleeve. “Which means ‘magic, hidden wisdom’. In it is copied every rune the Angel Raziel wrote in the original Book of the Covenant. There aren’t many copies because each one has to be specially made. Some of the runes are so powerful they’d burn through regular paper.”

   “I didn’t know that.” Alec’s voice.

   Jace hopped up onto the windowsill and swung his legs like a child. “Not all of us sleep through history lessons.”

   “I do not – ”

   “Oh, yes you do, and drool on the desk besides.”

   “Shut up,” Magnus said lightly. He hooked his finger between two pages and walked across the room to Simon. He knelt down next to him, and carefully set the book in Simon’s lap. “Now, when I open the book, I want you to study the page. Look at it until you feel something change inside your mind.”

   Simon nodded without speaking. Magnus looked at him for a moment, and then sighed. He stood up, letting the book fall open.

   Numbly, Simon looked down at the page. A rune waited for him, a stark knot of calligraphy against the seashell-thin paper, blacker than ink or ravens or a midnight sky. Blacker than anything. Like a Rorschach test it shifted when he tilted his head; now a winged spiral, then a caduceus, and then – then something shivered, the same electric thrill of feeling a song come together, and Simon’s eyes burned as if with tears. But he didn’t close them, didn’t blink, and he felt the moment that something shifted in his head, like a puzzle piece falling into place.

   The rune on the page suddenly seemed more focussed, more _real_ than anything else, and abruptly Simon thought it looked like a music note. It didn’t, it was nothing like a quaver or clef, but – but in the same way that aliens would know Pythagoras’ theorem even if they had a different name for it, even if the symbols they used for numbers were nothing like the human ones – in that way, the rune made Simon think of music. Music in another language. And it was like Mandarin, in that a single image could be a whole word – the rune was an entire song, he could feel it unfolding in his mind, bar after bar of music, and the name of the song was _Remember._

   Eagerly now, Simon turned the next page, and the next, listening to the Marks’ silent songs play on some instrument he’d never heard, something rich as a harp and thrilling as an electric guitar. It was trumpet and flute and drum, violin and double bass, and something more, something that made Simon’s chest ache with longing awe, like light spun into sound and played on diamond. _Sorrow. Thought. Strength. Protection. Grace –_

   The sudden jolt of silence – _real_ silence, as Magnus slammed the book shut and the singing stopped – made Simon cry out before he could stop himself.

   “That’s enough,” the warlock ordered. He reclaimed the book, and crossed the room to put it back on its shelf. “If you read all the runes at once, you’ll make yourself sick.”

   “But – ” Simon didn’t know what he might have said. _But the music – !_ Echoes of it ran down his spine like golden knives, made his stomach twist with ardent loss. That it was already fading from his mind made his breath catch in his throat, as if with tears.

   “Most Shadowhunter children grow up learning one rune at a time over a period of years.” Jace was watching him carefully. “The Gray Book contains runes even I don’t know.”

   “Imagine that,” Magnus said sardonically.

   Jace ignored him. He was frowning at Simon’s expression; Simon tried to get himself under control. “Magnus showed you the rune for understanding and remembrance. It opens your mind up to reading and recognising the rest of the Marks.”

   “It also may serve as a trigger to activate dormant memories.” Magnus wiped his hands on his colourful pants, leaving streaks of dust from the book. “They could return to you more quickly than they would otherwise. It’s the best I can do.”

   “Thanks,” Simon managed. His throat ached. Why had the runes hit him so hard? Was this normal? He made himself breathe, and ran through his mind, searching for anything new. Would he recognise a new memory? Would it stand out from the rest? “I still don’t remember anything about the Mortal Cup.”

   “Is _that_ what this is about?” Magnus asked, stunned. “You’re after the Angel’s Cup? Look, I’ve been through your memories. There was nothing in them about the Mortal Instruments.”

   “The what now?”

   “The Angel gave three items to the first Shadowhunters. A cup, a sword, and a mirror. The Silent Brothers have the Sword,” Simon remembered the silver blade on the wall, with a hilt like outstretched wings, “and the Cup and the Mirror were in Idris, at least until Valentine came along.”

   “Nobody knows where the Mirror is,” Alec corrected. “Nobody’s known for ages.”

   “It’s the Cup that concerns us.” Jace was still swinging his legs, carelessly. “Valentine’s looking for it.”

   “And you want to get to it before he does?” Magnus’ eyebrows shot upwards.

   “So much for not knowing who he is,” Simon said. He just managed not to snap it.

   “I lied,” Magnus said easily. “I’m not one of the fey, you know. I’m not required to be truthful. And only a fool would get between Valentine and his revenge.”

   “Is that what you think he’s after?” Jace asked. “Revenge?”

   “I would guess so. He suffered a grave defeat, and he hardly seemed – seems – the type of man to suffer defeat gracefully.”

   Alec looked at Magnus sharply. “Were you at the Uprising?”

   Magnus met Alec’s gaze without blinking. “I was. I killed a number of your folk.”

   “Circle members,” Jace said quietly. “Not ours.”

   “If you insist on disavowing that which is ugly about what you do,” Magnus said without looking away from Alec, “you will never learn from your mistakes.”

   Alec looked away first, flushing unhappily. “You don’t seem surprised to hear that Valentine’s still alive.”

   Magnus spread his hands. “Are you?”

   Jace opened his mouth – and then closed it again. He looked honestly baffled. “So you won’t help us find the Mortal Cup?”

   “I wouldn’t if I could. Which, by the way, I can’t.” Magnus spread his fingers and examined his nails once more. “I’ve no idea where it is, and I don’t care to know.” He flicked his eyes at Jace. “Only a fool, as I said.”  

   Alec straightened up. “But without the Cup, we can’t – ”

   “Make more of you. I know.” Magnus’ lips curled. “Perhaps not everyone regards that as quite the disaster you do. Mind you,” he added, “if I had to choose between the Clave and Valentine, I would choose the Clave. At least they’re not actually sworn to wipe out my kind. But nothing the Clave has done has earned my unswerving loyalty either. So no, I’ll sit this one out. Now if we’re done here, I’d like to get back to my party before any of my guests eat each other.”

   Jace’s hands were curling and uncurling, and his jaw was tight. Alec moved and put a hand on his shoulder. The room wasn’t brightly lit, but Simon thought Alec might be squeezing rather hard. “Is that likely?” Alec asked.

   Magnus glanced at him with amusement. “It’s happened before.”

   Jace muttered something under his breath: Alec released him. The blond slid off the windowsill and came over to Simon. “Are you all right?” he asked, quiet and low.

   “Does it matter?” Simon only just held back a snarl. He shoved himself to his feet. His insides felt knotted, his head dizzy with the fading memory of that incredible music, with murdered hope and a barely held-back misery.

   His attention was caught by Magnus snapping his fingers. “Move it along, teenagers. The only person who gets to canoodle in my bedroom is my magnificent self.”

   “I assure you, there won’t be any canoodling,” Simon drawled, mimicking Magnus’ pattern of speech.

   “Magnificent?” Echoed Jace, ignoring Simon.

   Magnus growled. He moved his hand, and for a moment Simon wondered if the warlock would play Jace like a puppet, like he had the vampire. But he only pointed at the door. “Get out.”

   They got. Magnus locked the door behind them. “Are you going to continue playing?”

   Simon stood still, looking over the party. His vision seemed clearer; everything had crystalline edges. “I’m sorry.” His voice sounded very far away. “I...I don’t think I’m up to it.”

   Magnus sighed. “ _Artists_.” He paused, then looked at Simon consideringly. “Are you sure?” he asked plaintively. “Because the back-up band are all fey, and I might have to abandon my own party if they sing.”

   “I’m sorry,” Simon said again. His body felt heavy and tired. He followed after Jace and Alec numbly.

   “Have you seen Isabelle?” Alec asked him, with a slightly worried frown.

   A rush of guilty concern slammed into Simon: he’d forgotten all about Clary. “No, I – ” He turned in a circle, looking for her – for both girls.

   “There she is.” Alec waved Isabelle over, relief softening his face. “Over here. And watch out for the phouka.”

   “Watch out for the phouka?” Jace glanced at a brown-skinned man in a lacy green vest who watched Isabelle thoughtfully as she walked past him.

   “He pinched me when I passed him earlier,” Alec said stiffly. “In a highly personal area.”

   Despite himself Simon snorted, and Jace grinned. “I hate to break it to you, but if he’s interested in your highly personal areas, he probably isn’t interested in your sister’s.”

   Simon raised his eyebrows. “Bisexual standing right here,” he said wryly.

   Alec gaped at him, and Simon realised Alec had never heard his little declaration outside Dorothea’s apartment.

   “Besides, faeries aren’t particular,” Magnus commented.

   Jace’s amusement vanished. “You still here?” he asked, his lip curling.

   Isabelle swept upon them before Magnus had a chance to reply. Her face was splotchy and pink, and she smelled very strongly of alcohol. Simon felt his heart sink. “Jace! Alec! Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over – ”

   “Where’s Clary?” Simon interrupted.

   Isabelle wobbled. “She’s a mouse.”

   All three boys wore identical expressions of confusion. “She – what?” Simon asked.

   “She’s drunk,” Jace said disgustedly.

   “I’m not!” Isabelle protested, indignant. “Well, maybe a little, but that’s not the point. The point is, Clary drank one of those blue drinks – I told her not to, but she didn’t listen – and she _turned into a mouse_.”

   “A _mouse?_ ”

   “The Clave isn’t going to like this,” Alec said dubiously. “I’m pretty sure turning mundanes into mice is against the Law.”

   “Technically she didn’t turn her into a mouse,” Jace pointed out. “The worst Izzy can be accused of is negligence.”

   “Are you _fucking kidding me?”_ Simon shouted. He grabbed Isabelle’s wrist, and barely resisted the urge to dig in with his nails when she tried to pull it away. “ _Where the hell is Clary?”_

   “Ouch! Let go of me!”

   “Get off of her!” Alec’s blue eyes burned in defence of his sister; and when he moved forward everything went sharp and hot and cold and Simon had Simiel in his hand before he could think about it, the blade coming free as Simon hissed its name like a warning. Alec and Jace both froze.

   Simon turned back to Isabelle. “ _Tell me where she is!”_ he snarled. He felt her bones grind together under his fingers, and wanted them to snap. “I can’t believe you just _left her_ – ”

   “I didn’t leave her, she ran under the bar!” Isabelle pointed with her free hand.

   Simon shoved her away hard, snapping Simiel back into its hilt as if he’d been doing it all his life. It went into his pocket as he ran for the bar, pushing through dancers, and he dropped to his knees to peer into the dark space between the bar and the floor.

   “Clary?” His voice broke, and he prayed his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, that he really was seeing a pair of tiny dark eyes. “Is that you?”

   Clary-the-mouse extended her head forward slightly, trembling. Simon understood the impulse; his own hands were shaking.

   “Clary, it’s me,” he whispered. Little animals didn’t like big noises, did they? The music was probably hurting her little seashell ears. “Simon.” Slowly, terrified of scaring her away, he extended one hand beneath the bar. “Please come out? I swear, I _swear_ I’ll take care of you. We’ll get Magnus to take the spell off, it’ll be okay. I promise.”

   Jace and the others arrived behind him. Isabelle was rubbing her wrist. “Is she under there?” Jace asked, more curious than concerned.

   Simon clenched his jaw. “Get the hell away from us,” he snapped. “You’ll scare her away!”

   Jace rolled his eyes, but backed up some. Simon forced himself to breathe evenly and ignore them. “Clary,” he called softly. “Come on, Clary. Please?”

   There was a squeak – Simon almost didn’t hear it over the music – and suddenly a little brown shape came running out from beneath the bar, leaping into Simon’s hand. “Clary!” He scooped her up instantly, cradling her carefully against his chest. “You understood me!” It hadn’t even occurred to him that she might not – but what if her brain had become a mouse brain? He’d never have coaxed her out if she’d become a real mouse. The near miss chilled him to the bone.

   “She’s kind of cute like that,” Jace commented with a grin, peering over Simon’s shoulder.

   If Simon hadn’t had his hands full, he would have done his best to deck the smug bastard. “Why don’t you make yourself useful,” he said through gritted teeth, “and get Magnus so we can _change her back._ ”

   “Izzy, go fetch our magnificent host,” Jace said carelessly.

   “Why me?” Isabelle asked sulkily.

   “Because it’s your fault the mundane’s a mouse, idiot,” he said. “And we can’t leave her here.”

   “You’d be happy to leave her if it weren’t for _him_ ,” Isabelle spat. She spun on her heel and vanished into the crowd.

   Simon stroked his fingertip over mouse-Clary’s head, his gut twisted between rage and guilt. He should have made sure Isabelle would watch Clary properly – Hell, he shouldn’t have let Clary come at all tonight! There was no reason for her to be involved in all this – the Shadowhunters were Simon’s problem, not hers. Clary had no obligation to help him find his mom.

   Neither did Jace and the others, come to that.

   He heard someone chuckle, and glanced up. Magnus’ idle amusement was completely at odds with Isabelle’s fury, but she was standing behind the warlock and Simon ignored her. “ _Mus musculus_ ,” Magnus said, peering at Clary. “A common house mouse, nothing exotic.”

   Simon bit his tongue to keep from snapping _Does that matter?_ For all he knew, the type of mouse Clary was would affect how to change her back. Maybe it _did_ matter. “Could you – can you please turn her back?”

   “Hm...” Magnus ran a hand through his hair, causing a fine mist of glitter to gather around his head and shoulders. “No point.”

   “That’s what I said.” Jace looked pleased.

   Simon did not explode, even as Clary squeaked a protest. He cupped her a little closer to his chest, to hide how his hands trembled. “Why is there no point?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice calm. If Magnus said _one fucking word_ about mundanes, Simon was going to lose it.

   “Because she’ll turn back on her own in a few hours.” Magnus straightened up, apparently done with his examination of Clary. “The effect of the cocktails is temporary. No point working up a transformation spell; it’ll just traumatise her. Too much magic is hard on mundanes, you know. Their systems aren’t used to it.”

   Slowly, the knot of rage in Simon’s gut loosened, and he looked back down at Clary. She sat up in his hands on her hind paws, and despite everything he felt a grin pull at his lips. He could have sworn she frowned, but the nip to the heel of his hand made her displeasure perfectly obvious. “Sorry,” he said hastily when she looked like she might do it again. “Only, you’re kind of adorable. But at least we came in the van, right?” Gently, he stroked her head again. She felt so fragile, and Simon felt nauseas at the thought of how easily she could have been hurt, if she hadn’t been smart enough to run under the bar. “Imagine if we had to get you home on the subway.”

   Shouting began to rise over the music, a gaggle of angry voices somewhere near the door of the apartment. Magnus rolled his eyes. “Excuse me,” he said lightly, and vanished into the crowd, presumably to go deal with it.

   “So much for _his_ help,” Isabelle muttered.

   Alec was frowning. “You know,” he said slowly, “you could always put the mouse in your backpack.”

   “Her name is _Clary_ ,” Simon snapped. But there didn’t seem anything wrong with the idea – although what did it say about him, Simon wondered, that Alec knew he would have brought his rucksack with him to the party? Or maybe it wasn’t him – maybe Alec expected it because keeping supplies close by was probably a Shadowhunter thing to do, like always having a weapon somewhere on your person.

   Was expecting him to think like a Shadowhunter an insult, or a compliment?

   Neither, Simon realised sharply, feeling sick. It was a sign of how isolated Alec and the others were – they thought everyone thought the way they did, because they didn’t know anyone but people like them.

   That was fucking terrifying to contemplate.

   “Where are you going?” Jace demanded as Simon carefully got to his feet, hyper-aware of Clary’s tiny mouse-body.

   “My bag’s on the stage. And I should tell the guys to pack up anyway.”

   “You’re leaving?”

   Simon stared at him. “I’m not really in the mood to party while my best friend’s a mouse,” he said frostily.

   Jace frowned, but Simon turned away before he could say anything else. People were moving towards the door, towards the shouting, which made it easier – if not strictly easy – for Simon to get through the crowd. He cupped his hands completely over Clary, encasing her so there was no possible way she could fall. From the furry wiggling against his fingers he guessed that she wasn’t happy about being enclosed, and he couldn’t blame her – he didn’t like tight spaces either, and his hands weren’t large enough for there to be a lot of room in his hand-bubble. But she didn’t bite him, and it was still far, far better than dropping her for someone to step on.    

   Eric, Matt and Kirk were all exactly where he’d left them – creepily so, as if they were stoned off their heads, smiling and staring off into the distance. Simon sickly hoped this was just Magnus’ spell to make them remember tonight as a dream, and not something new to worry about. “Guys?” he tried, carefully going to his knees so he could grab his bag from behind the drum set. “We should pack up and head home now.”

   “Okay,” Eric said dreamily. The other two mumbled contented agreement, and started dismantling their instruments. Kirk wandered off to disconnect the electrical cords as Simon opened his rucksack and gently placed Clary inside.

   She sneezed. It was adorable.

   “Sorry,” Simon apologised. “I haven’t had a chance to do any laundry yet.” He picked her up again, and single-handedly rearranged things so that a clean shirt was on top. “That better?”

   She walked in a little circle, making a depression in the fabric, and then curled up like a Celtic knot.

   “I’ll take that as a yes,” he decided. When she closed her eyes, he zipped the bag up and swung it onto his shoulder, his stomach tight with worry and concern, trying to make every gesture slowly and smoothly so as not to jostle her.

   Kirk returned with the cords, but they were going to need some help shifting Eric’s drums. Simon wondered if he dared approach any vampires about it, but he didn’t see that they had much of a choice, and he wasn’t going to risk sending one of the guys to go ask. He doubted they would say ‘no’ in their weird dreamy state if anybody asked to bite them.

   His best friend was a mouse: he didn’t need the rest of his social circle to become vampire kibble too.

   Back and forth Simon went again, looking for someone who might help. The Shadowhunters had vanished again, and the vampires all seemed gathered in a knot by Magnus, fiercely arguing about something; it didn’t seem like a good time to go bother them. They looked more likely to bite his head off – maybe literally! – than indulge him in a game of heavy lifting.

   “Simon?”

   Simon spun around at the unfamiliar voice, and stared. “Kaelie?”

   She grinned those star-splinter teeth at him. “It _is_ you!” Out of her waitress uniform, he nearly hadn’t recognised her; her silky tube top shimmered like a peacock’s tail, and the blue-green called attention to her inhuman eyes. Simon grinned back at her, weirdly pleased to see someone flaunting their otherness instead of covering it up. “I thought I recognised you on the stage! I had no idea you sang!”

   “Yeah, well.” He smiled, a little sheepish. He had never worked out how to respond to people who liked his music. “Now you know.”

   She laughed. “Aren’t you adorable? Seriously, though, you guys are really good. I mean, you had all of _us_ dancing, and most of us don’t like modern music at all!”

   “Who’s ‘us’?”

   She grinned. “We have lots of names,” she purred. “The Little People. The Fair Family. The Gentry. The Shining Ones.” Her smile widened, flashing those teeth at him as she said, “My favourite is the People of Peace.”

   Nothing, Simon thought with a little jolt of nerves, that had teeth like that could be called ‘peaceful’.

   But luckily he’d read enough fantasy to know that saying ‘fairies’ aloud might get him in trouble, so he only nodded, in what he hoped was a wise and knowing fashion. “I’m glad the People of Peace enjoyed our music,” he said formally. Politeness, he remembered from the stories, was of paramount importance when dealing with the fey. Whether the stories were true or not, it couldn’t hurt. “We’re just wrapping up, though.”

   She sighed. “So sad,” she said mournfully.

   She looked so disappointed that he didn’t feel like he was taking advantage by asking, “Do you know anyone who could help us pack up? I mean, we need some help shifting the instruments – it’s not going to be very exciting or anything – ”

   She didn’t let him finish. “I’d be happy to! And I know others who’ll help – give me one sec, and we’ll meet you back at the stage!” She vanished before he could express his gratitude – which was lucky, because the stories also said you weren’t supposed to say ‘thank you’, and it had been on the tip of his tongue.

   Close call. There’d been too many of those lately.

   There were, indeed, a small group of people waiting when he managed to get back to the stage – among them the girl Clary had been dancing with. She looked around – for Clary? – but didn’t approach Simon to ask her whereabouts, just calmly followed Simon’s instructions along with the others. They all seemed strangely happy to help, as if lifting heavy drum sets was a rare treat instead of a difficult chore. But then, the boy whose tattoos of horses and dragons moved on his arms as if alive lifted the bass drum like it was nothing, and the others all seemed equally strong.

   Simon decided to count his blessings instead of trying to understand it.

   Matt and Kirk and Eric followed along like ducklings after their mother, and Kaelie walked next to Simon with the China cymbal, making suggestions for the band’s future venues. Simon wished he had a paper and pen to make notes of all the Shadow World hotspots – he would have loved to check out Elysium, with real mermaids dancing in tanks set into the walls and lightshows worked by fairies – “and you _have_ to make it to Hel’s Bells, they’d love you guys. I know a guy who knows a guy who could definitely get you a gig there.”

   But Simon suddenly wasn’t listening. The tight knot of yelling people by the door turned out to be more vampires, all of them pale and dark-haired like something out of a bad horror movie. Except some of them, he noticed inanely, had blond eyebrows. _So they dye their hair to fit the stereotype? Why?_ Didn’t they know that Lestat had been blond? Who could possibly be a better vampire to emulate than Anne Rice’s Brat Prince?

   They were gathered around Magnus, shouting about the fact that some of their friends were missing and unaccounted for.

   “They’re probably drunk and passed out somewhere,” Magnus was saying carelessly. “You know how you lot tend to turn into bats and piles of dust when you’ve downed a few too many Bloody Marys.”

   “They mix their vodka with real blood,” Jace said in Simon’s ear.

   Simon jumped. “Where the hell have you been?” he hissed. Isabelle and Alec had arrived with just as little warning, flanking Jace like the three musketeers.

   Jace shrugged, then eyed the gathered fey with Lint’s instruments. “So you really are leaving. Good. Things are getting tense in here.”

   “We can’t go around picking up every pile of dust in the place just in case it turns out to be Gregor in the morning!” A sulky vampire girl snapped.

   “Gregor will be fine. I rarely sweep,” Magnus assured her. “I’m happy to send any stragglers back to the hotel come tomorrow – in a car with blacked-out windows, of course.”

   “Simon?” Kaelie poked him gently with a blue fingernail. “Are you okay?”

   “He’s fine,” Jace answered, his eyes narrowing at her. “Let’s get this all put away, and we can wrap this up.”

   He pushed Simon towards the exit. The crowd was mostly made up of vampires here, and was tightly packed. Simon struggled to keep one hand on the strap of his rucksack while carrying his guitar.

   “All right, that’s IT!” Magnus shouted. “Party’s over! Everybody out!”

   It would have been nice, Simon thought, if Magnus had waited a few more minutes: obediently the partygoers all started moving towards the door, and things got even more crushed. Someone bumped into Simon’s shoulder, hard, and he almost fell; a hand brushed his rucksack and then grasped his shoulder, hoisting him up. When he looked, he saw a vampire with a stake earring grinning at him. “Hey, pretty thing,” the vampire purred. “What’s in the bag?”

   “Holy water.” Jace appeared beside them as if conjured, his eyes blazing.

   “Ooh, a _Shadowhunter_ ,” the vampire grinned, waggling his fingers in a mock-spooky gesture. “Scary.” He winked at Simon and melted back into the crowd.

   “Vampires are such prima donnas,” Kaelie sniffed.

   “So true,” Magnus sighed. He was lounging to one side of the doorway, examining his nails. “Honestly, I don’t know why I have these parties.”

   “Because of your cat,” Simon reminded him.

   Magnus perked up. “That’s true. Chairman Meow deserves my every effort.” He cocked his head. “You on your way out?”

   “You did end the party.” Simon gave up and pushed the guitar into Jace’s surprised arms. “Carry this for me, would you?”

   “Next time, do leave the Shadowhunters at home,” Magnus told Simon. “Except for _that_ one. He can come any time.” He pointed a shining fingernail at Alec, and one gleaming cat-eye winked. “Call me?”

   Alec blushed and stuttered and probably would have stood there until Judgement Day if Jace hadn’t rolled his eyes and – heedless of the weight of Simon’s guitar – grasped his arm and hauled him out the door, Isabelle following close behind.

   Magnus tapped Simon’s shoulder when he made to go after them. “I have a message for you. From your mother.”

   Simon’s heart stopped. “Go on,” he told Kaelie, without looking away from the warlock. “There’s – there’s a van. Just put the instruments in there, please? I’ll catch up in a second.”

   Kaelie glanced at Magnus, and capitulated with a nod. She and the other fairies carried the various instruments through the doorway and down the stairs, herding Eric and the others along as they vanished out of sight.

   “What’s the message?” Simon asked, the moment they were gone. “Did she tell you to tell me something?” His mind raced, replaying a thousand mystery stories. Maybe his mom had put fail safes in place – maybe she’d left messages with all kinds of people, in case Simon ever got dragged into this. Maybe she’d left _clues_. Suddenly the hope that had died when they learned his memories were out of reach and useless sparked again.

   “Not exactly.” Magnus’ feline gaze, all jade and gold, were solemn. “But I knew her in a way that you didn’t. She did what she did to keep you out of a world she hated. Her whole existence, the running, the hiding – were to keep you safe. Don’t waste her sacrifices by risking your life. She wouldn’t want that.”

   The hope dashed, and Simon swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. “I know,” he said quietly. And he did. He didn’t like it, but he understood why Jocelyn had done what she did, and couldn’t blame her for it. He could have died half a dozen times in the last week; she’d clearly been right to keep him out of the Shadow World. “But I can’t – I can’t walk away until I get her back.”

   “If it means putting yourself in danger, walking away is exactly what she would tell you to do.”

   Yeah, it was. He could almost hear his mother’s voice ordering him away from all of this: _Don’t you dare put yourself at risk to save me, Simon Fray! It’s my job to protect you, not the other way around!_

   _But you can’t protect me, mom. Not anymore. Not until this is over._ He felt sick. _I’m sorry._

   “And one last thing.” Magnus’ eyes flicked towards the door, through which Jace and the others had disappeared. “Keep in mind that when your mother fled from the Shadow World, it wasn’t the monsters she was hiding from. Not the warlocks, the wolf-men, the Fair Folk, not even the demons themselves. It was _them_. It was the Shadowhunters.”

*

   Outside, most of the fairies had gone, leaving the instruments safely tucked away in the van. Kaelie stood chatting with a more animated Kirk; Jace was leaning against the stairway railing, a small smirk curving his lips as he watched the vampires massed around their broken motorbikes, cursing and swearing. Alec and Isabelle stood a little way off from the others, talking quietly. Intensity fairly fizzed off of them, but Simon left them to it.

   “Thanks for the help,” he told Kaelie gratefully as he approached her. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you guys.”

   She smiled. “It was no trouble. Hopefully I’ll see you play again soon.” She glanced sideways at Jace, who had pushed himself off the railing and was walking towards them. “Maybe you could take my number, and call me when you know when your next performance is?”

   Simon hesitated a second, but couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. “Um, okay – ”

   Jace was out of Simon’s line of sight for a moment, but not Kaelie’s. Whatever the blond did made the girl laugh, and she held up her hands in surrender. “Or maybe not. I’ll just have to keep my ears cocked. Catch you later, sweetie.”

   She kissed his cheek and darted away with a dainty wave before Simon could figure out what had just happened. Although Jace’s smug expression, when Simon turned to him, was fairly self-explanatory.

   “You – seriously?”

   Jace’s pose instantly morphed into one of innocence. “What?”

   Simon sighed. “It’s not worth it,” he muttered. Sometime soon he and Jace would have to have it out – in the normal, obvious way, with frank words instead of sung lyrics – but that would have to wait until his best friend wasn’t a mouse.

   Which reminded him. Gently, he lowered his bag off his shoulder, meaning to check and make sure that Clary was still okay –

   And froze.

   The rucksack was open.

   He had not left it open. He had zipped it up after putting Clary inside it. _It should not be open._

   “What’s wrong?” Jace asked. Simon heard the oncoming sarcasm in his voice, but then he stopped, presumably seeing the look on Simon’s face. “Simon?”

   Simon dropped to his knees, ripping the zipper open the rest of the way. He tore through shirts, underwear, his notebook and iPad, heedless of Jace watching him, or Isabelle and Alec coming over to see what the fuss was. His heart was screaming in his chest, and every second, every sock he threw onto the pavement that didn’t have Clary hiding under it, made the world press tight against his skin.

   “She’s not here. She’s not here!”

   “Did she climb out?” Jace asked, suddenly close.

   It was late, and Simon was tired, and it had been one thing after another tonight: he snapped. “ _No!_ ” he shouted. “ _Of course she freaking didn’t!_ She’s not that fucking _stupid_ – just because you think mundanes are _worthless_ – ”

   “Simon – ”

   _“Shut up!”_ A scream of helpless rage caught in his throat, and Simon snapped to his feet, swinging the almost empty pack at Jace’s head. “You didn’t even want to change her back!”

   Jace caught the bag and tugged it away from him, making Simon stumble. But he didn’t fall, and before he could lunge at Jace the blond said, “It’s been torn.”

   “What?”

   Jace looked up from his examination of the rucksack. “The zipper,” he said gently. “It’s been torn. From the outside. Someone ripped this bag open.”

   It hit Simon like a freight train. “Someone took her,” he whispered. “Somebody took Clary.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was delayed because, in all honesty, I got depressed about it. I know this fic has fans, but very few of you ever comment. I’m not flaming or bitching (I’m trying not to, anyway), but it gets incredibly depressing, working so hard on a chapter to get virtually no response. As I said on tumblr – I know how this story goes. I don’t need to write it. So if you guys don’t particularly care about it, there isn’t much need in me to write it. 
> 
> Just a line or two about what you think of the chapter can really, really make my day.
> 
> As such, this chapter goes out to thewhiteknightcentury and itsalwayssunnyingraceadelphia on ao3, and thrimble on ff.net, for writing me really lovely comments of encouragement. I got your comments over the last 24 hours, and I swear, I finished this chapter hours later. You guys inspired me, and this chapter wouldn't exist (at least, not nearly so soon, and maybe not ever) without you. Thank you so much.

   Everything went blank for a little while. Simon’s head was full of white noise, his processors jammed; the street and the van and the Shadowhunters all vanished, only one thought filling everything –

   _Somebody took Clary._

   Took her. She hadn’t fallen out of the bag, or smelled cheese and snuck out on her own. She’d been _taken_. Deliberately. All those creatures in Magnus’ party with sharp, sharp teeth – they wouldn’t want a mouse as a pet. They’d want – they’d want to _eat_ her, or use bits of her for a spell, or something equally horrible. Clary. His best friend – her graphite-smudged fingertips and her red hair, her graphic novels, her appalling taste in music – it could, it could all be vanishing down some _thing’s_ gullet right this second –

   “Simon. Simon?”

   The world snapped back into place, like a set’s backdrop being dropped into view: dark street, dully glowing lampposts, the converted warehouses. _Spot the difference_ : the vampires on their bikes were gone, and so was Eric’s van. There was only Jace, his hair and skin and eyes all gleaming soft gold in the dim light, like an aurulent aurora borealis, silent but bright in the dark.

   “Where...?”

   He meant _where’s Clary, help me find Clary_ , but Jace misunderstood. “Your friends seemed drunk, so I sent Izzy and Alec to drive them home.”

   “Not drunk,” Simon mumbled, sick. Dizzy. Or, not _dizzy_ , precisely, but it felt as though the ground was uncertain beneath his feet, like the deck of a ship in a storm. “Magnus – a spell – so they wouldn’t remember...”

   This must have made sense to Jace, because he nodded. “We’ll find her,” he said gently, and this time there were no misunderstandings: Simon knew intrinsically who Jace meant. “I promise.”

   _You promised we’d find my mom, too, and look how that turned out._ But even in his – whatever this was – Simon managed not to say it out loud. That would be – too sharp a weapon. Too deep a wound to inflict lightly in a moment of lashing-out. He took a deep breath. “How.” It was not a question.

   Something between a command and a plea, but not a question.

   In answer Jace’s fingers closed around Simon’s wrist, firm and warm and solid, and led him back towards the entryway of Magnus’ building. Fragments pushed through Simon’s force field of numb shock; the stink of alcohol and hot tarmac, urine, and something sweet and strange that whispered _Downworlder_ in the depths of Simon’s lizard-brain. Jace swung Simon’s back-pack over his shoulder, and let go of Simon’s wrist to press Magnus’ buzzer.

   He had to press it twice. The second time, he held the button down in a continuous, grating whine until the warlock’s voice roared out of the intercom. “WHO DARES DISTURB MY REST?”

   Jace looked...almost nervous. That was not the slightest bit reassuring. “Jace Wayland. Remember? I’m from the Clave.”

   “Oh, yes.” In an instant, Magnus went from divinely offended to intensely interested. “Are you the one with the blue eyes?”

   That startled a snort out of Simon. Jace glanced at him with an unreadable expression before answering. “No. My eyes are usually described as golden. And luminous.”

   “Oh, you’re _that_ one.” Magnus sighed, disappointed. “I suppose you’d better come up.”

   He answered his door wearing a dragon-print silk kimono, a gold turban, and an expression of barely restrained irritation.

   “I,” he said loftily, “was _sleeping_.”

   “Sorry.” Simon blinked: that had been _his_ voice. “I – we – ”

   The sudden appearance of something small and white materialising around the warlock’s ankles stopped the words in Simon’s throat. The creature was zigzagged in grey, with soft pink ears that made it look more like a mouse than a cat. But it was most definitely a cat. _And Clary was a brown mouse anyway, not a white one._

   “Chairman Meow has returned,” Magnus explained when Simon continued to stare.

   Jace clearly did not think much of Magnus’ pet. “That’s not a cat. It’s the size of a hamster.”

   “I am kindly going to forget you said that.” Magnus nudged Chairman Meow behind him with an elegantly bare foot. “Now, exactly what did you come here for?”

   “Clary. Clary is missing,” Simon burst out. “She’s – somebody took her. Out of my bag.”

   Magnus looked at him, raising one scintillating eyebrow. “And?”

   “And we need to find out who it was,” Jace said steadily, putting his hand on Simon’s shoulder. Perhaps he remembered how Simon had pulled Simiel on Alec – Simon hadn’t thought of it before Jace’s restraining motion reminded him. But he couldn’t imagine drawing a weapon on Magnus. Alec had nearly killed him: Magnus had...not. “I’m guessing you know,” Jace continued. “You _are_ the High Warlock of Brooklyn. I’m thinking not much happens in your own apartment that you don’t know about.”

   Magnus examined a nail. He had not yet removed the glittering nail polish; it flashed like a jewel. “You’re not wrong.”

   “Please.” Jace’s hand tightened on Simon’s shoulder, but Simon couldn’t make himself be quiet. “She’s my – please.”

   Magnus sighed. His hand fell. “Fine. I saw one of the vampire bike kids from the uptown laid leave with a brown mouse in his hands. Honestly, I figured it was one of their own. Sometimes the Night Children turn into rodents when they get drunk. Rats and bats, usually, but mice too, sometimes.”

   “But now you think it was Clary?” The continental drift of Simon’s thoughts was speeding up, turning hard and clear, like sand under white-hot flame. Turning – not into glass. Nothing so fragile.

   _How do they make seraph blades?_ He wondered suddenly. That shining crystal, the moon-sickle edge sharp enough to shear molecules – that was what he felt his mind becoming.

   “It’s just a guess, but it seems likely.”

   Simon wasn’t the only one changing: Jace shifted like a combination puzzle, snapping into something leonine and predatory as he came on red alert. _Good,_ Simon thought fiercely. He needed – Clary needed – the Shadowhunter now, not the blond flirt. Was it a different persona, for Jace, a mask or a part he played? Or just a different facet of his core? “There’s just one more thing,” the blond said. Calmly enough, if you couldn’t see the glitter in his eyes. “Where’s their lair?”

   “Their what?”

   “The vampires’ lair. That’s where they went, isn’t it?”

   “I would imagine so.” Suddenly, Magnus looked distinctly skittish.

   “I need you to tell us where it is.” Jace’s voice was icy.

   Magnus shook his head. “I’m not setting myself on the bad side of the Night Children for a mundane I don’t even know.”

   “She’s worth just as much as you!” Simon snapped. “She’s a living, breathing – an artist – she _matters_! Maybe she doesn’t have eyes like a cat or magic tattoos – ”

   “They’re not magical,” Jace muttered under his breath.

   “Shut up,” Simon snarled at him. He looked back at Magnus, his heart pounding. “Being a mundane doesn’t make her worthless. She’s just as valuable as you.”

   “I’m afraid I’m not of much particular value,” Magnus drawled, gesturing at Jace. “As _they_ see things.”

   “Yeah, I got that they’re the neo-nazis of the Shadow World,” Simon said harshly, not looking at the Nephilim beside him. “Racial purity or whatever. But do you want to be as bad as them, or do you want to be worth something where it counts?”

   Magnus stared at him, his features completely unreadable. He might have been moulded of wax, for all Simon could read his impassive slitted eyes.

   The fierce brightness in Simon’s chest flickered, dimming under that stare. “Please,” he whispered.

   The warlock blinked, once and slowly. “The old Hotel Dumont,” he said softly. “Uptown.”

   Simon let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. The light in him flared, like Simiel in the Bone City, like Eärendil. “Thank you,” he sighed.

   Without answering, Magnus started to close the door. Jace’s leg snapped out, wedging it open with his foot.

   Magnus’ eyes glittered. “What now?”

   “Is there a holy place around here?”

   The corners of the warlock’s mouth curved up. “Good idea. If you’re going to take on a lair of vampires by yourself, you’d better pray first.” He pointed. “There’s a Catholic church down on Diamond Street. Will that do?”

   Jace stepped back. “That’s – ”

   The door slammed shut in their faces.

*

   “Why the hell are we going to a church?” Simon demanded, watching Jace draw out his stele to deal with the padlock on the gate. The church in question waited for them beyond the wrought iron fence, and it did seem to be _waiting_ : Simon had the uncomfortable sensation of being watched, and it wasn’t entirely the worry that someone would notice them breaking and entering. “We need to find Clary!”

   “And if we want to get her back, we’re going to need weapons.” There were no street lamps nearby, and without their neon glow the starlight kissed the colour out of Jace’s hair, turned it silver as he worked the lock.

   “Then I repeat: what the hell are we doing at a _church?_ ”

   The lock hit the ground with a heavy clank, a half-molten lump of slag. Jace looked smug. “As usual, I’m amazingly good at that.”

   “ _Jace!_ ”

   “I’ll show you. Come on.”

   Wary and impatient, Simon allowed Jace to lead him up to the double front doors. A stone angel looked down at the two boys from a beautiful arch above the doors; he wondered if that was an omen, if the carver had intended it to be a particular angel, if its name was Raziel.

   Instead of repeating his trick with the lock, Jace put his stele away, and then laid his palm flat on the door. The moonlight caught on dozens of small white scars on his hand and wrist, tiny snowflakes on his skin. “In the name of the Clave,” he said, “I ask entry to this holy place. In the name of the Battle That Never Ends, I ask the use of your weapons. And in the name of the Angel Raziel, I ask your blessings on my mission against the darkness.”

   A jolt of something electric and terrible and glorious shivered down Simon’s spine, burning through his nerves and into his fingertips and toes. The door’s latch clicked, and the door swung open smoothly, like a hand gesturing them inside, urging them into the benevolent darkness.

   Jace smiled. “After you.”

   The interior was blessedly cool after the summer heat outside, the quiet stone guarding against the high temperatures as well as, Simon began to suspect, more supernatural threats. He had never actually been inside a church before – his expectations were shaped from scenes in books and films, and to be fair, reality didn’t disappoint: pews filled the space in neat rows, leading up to the altar, and in the faint light from outside and the small pyramid of candles glowing against the far wall, he could make out stained-glass windows and smooth stone pillars, reaching up to support a vaulted ceiling.

   But it did not for one moment make him feel safe. He reached for Simiel, closing his fingers around it in his pocket.

   “What did you mean about the weapons?” he asked, instinctively hushing his voice.

   “Up by the altar.” Jace walked between the pews, and Simon followed, feeling a twinge of envy for the blond’s sure, confident strides. Jace knew what he was doing, even if Simon didn’t. What must it be like, to always know what to do and how to do it? Simon thought he might have sweated blood for an instruction manual to this new reality, and Jace just...lived it, as if the cheat codes were encoded in his DNA.

   Jace knelt in front of the altar. About to acidly point out this was no time for praying, Simon bit his tongue: maybe it _was_ time to pray. He still knew almost nothing about Shadowhunters; was it so strange, that a race of people that had come from an angel might be religious? Simon looked away instead, his eyes coming to rest on the slab of granite that was the altar, draped in a blood-red cloth. An elaborately decorated gold screen stood behind it; Simon guessed the little people etched into it were saints and such. Each of them had a golden disc around their head, like a halo.

   When he looked back, Jace was running his hands back and forth over the floor like a madman. “What are you _doing?_ ” Simon hissed.

   “Looking for weapons.”

   Simon stared. “Here?”

   “They’d be hidden, usually around the altar. Kept for our use in case of emergencies.”

   He didn’t like that _our_. _I’m not a Shadowhunter._ “Do you guys have some kind of deal with the Catholic Church?” Visions of _The Da Vinci Code_ ran through his head, hysterically. _Christ in a ballet skirt, the Catholics have a conspiracy after all!_

   “Not specifically,” Jace said absently. “Demons have been on Earth as long as we have. They’re all over the world, in their different forms – Greek daemons, Persian _daevas_ , Hindu _asuras_ , Japanese _oni_. Most belief systems have some method of incorporating both their existence and the fight against them. Shadowhunters cleave to no single religion, and in turn all religions assist us in our battle. I could as easily have gone for help to a Jewish synagogue or a Shinto temple, or – Ah. Here it is.”

   Intrigued, his mind whirling with the new information – he was determined to get his hands on the Shadowhunter editions of the world’s religious texts, as well as finding one of their maps with Idris marked in – Simon knelt down beside Jace as the blond pointed out one of the stones before the altar. There was a rune marked there.

   It didn’t light up, the way it probably would have done if this were an anime, but it felt as though it did – it jumped out at him, almost _into_ him, as if it were the only voice he could hear, the only voice speaking normally in a room full of whisperers. Its song spun through him, dust and stone transmuted into a sound that was all silver and brightness, a high, pure note at its core that tugged at his heart and stole his breath away. And braided into it, like a band of musicians framing a singer’s voice, were other sounds, weaving into an impossible melody: Simon heard-felt clashing metal and the screaming thrill of running in a thunderstorm with lightning overhead; an instrument that was the child of a pounding heartbeat and a war drum; a blazing, glorious flash of sound, like the light of a seraph blade played on steel strings that kissed and bled the fingers; he heard beating wings and a roar that might have been rushing wind or a wordless cry of defiance against the darkness.

   “Nephilim,” he whispered, naming the song.

   Jace glanced at him sharply, but didn’t say anything. He took out his stele again and gently touched it to the rune.

   A low, grinding noise emanated from beneath the floor. As the door had, the stone opened, a panel sliding aside to reveal a long wooden box fitted snugly into a hidden compartment. Without hesitation Jace lifted the lid, and seemed supremely satisfied with what he found there.

   “You weren’t kidding about the weapons,” Simon said faintly, stunned.

   Jace grinned at him. “Vials of holy water, blessed knives, steel and silver blades...” He pointed each one out to Simon, withdrawing several of each and laying them on the floor. “Electrum wire – not much use at the moment, but it’s always good to have some spare – silver bullets, charms of protection, crucifixes, stars of David – ”

   “Christ.”

   “I doubt he’d fit.”

   Simon snorted a laugh. “And here I thought you might be religious. I should have known better. You’re too irreverent for even _divine_ authority, aren’t you?”

   Jace grinned back at him, but then subsided. “It’s true. I’m not really a believer.”

   “Any particular reason?”

   Jace looked up from examining a vial of the holy water. “Is there any particular reason to _believe?_ ”

   Simon shrugged. “You guys come from angels. Or believe you do. And...” He gestured at the weapons.

   “Ah.” Jace tucked the vial away in a pocket. “You mean if there’s this,” he pointed down, presumably at the idea of Hell, “there should be this.” He pointed up at the ceiling.

   “If there are demons, there ought to be angels as well. Otherwise it’s just...” _Unfair._ But that wasn’t a reason you could give, in real life. Not if you wanted the universe to pay attention, anyway.

   Jace picked up a knife and tossed it absently, plucking it out of the air again with practised ease. “I’ll tell you something. I’ve been killing demons for a third of my life. I must have sent five hundred of them back to whatever hellish dimension they crawled out of. And in all that time – in _all_ that time – I’ve never seen an angel. Never even heard of anyone who has.”

   “I’ve never heard of anyone who’s seen the dark side of the moon, either,” Simon said glibly, just to play Devil’s Advocate. Which was somewhat ironic, considering the topic of conversation. “That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

   Jace gave him a look that skilfully conveyed just how unimpressed he was with that argument. But then it faded, softly dissolving into something...something Simon had never seen on a teenager’s face before. An expression that looked too old for Jace’s features.

   “Let me put it this way,” the blond said tonelessly, carefully sliding a pair of knives into his belt. He dipped his head, casting that unnerving expression into shadow. “My father believed in a righteous God. _Deus volt_ , that was his motto – ‘because God wills it.’ It was the Crusaders’ motto, and they went out to battle and were slaughtered, just like my father. And when I saw him lying dead in a pool of his own blood, I knew then that I hadn’t stopped believing in God. I’d just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Simon, and there might not, but I don’t think it matters. Either way, we’re on our own.”

   A cup of silence slammed down over Simon, like a glass over a spider. Jace didn’t seem to notice anything wrong – he continued to arm himself from the treasure chest of sharp things – but Simon felt his heart stop, as surely as if Jace had taken up one of those knives and pushed it into Simon’s chest.

   He opened his mouth to speak, but had no idea what to say. He only knew – in the way that he knew up from down and dark from light – that he couldn’t let Jace’s words be the final say on the matter.

   He swallowed, and tried to imagine what his mom would say if she were here. Tried to mimic her crisp, matter-of-fact tone, the one she used when Simon was at his lowest and hugs and hot chocolate weren’t working. “Bullshit.”

   Jace’s head snapped up, startled. “What?”

   Simon licked his lips, his chest tight. “We’re” _you’re_ “not on our own. You idiot,” he added, because he felt like a Hallmark card and even supremely mature young men like himself felt awkward parroting Hallmark-worthy mottos. “I don’t know if there are angels or God or whatever. But even if there isn’t, you’ve still got Alec and Isabelle, don’t you? And – and Hodge. And Alec’s parents, when they get back from Idris.”

   _And me_. He almost said it – the words nearly tripped off his tongue, but he bit them back at the last moment, with a horrified flush of embarrassment.

   “Almost nobody’s ever really _alone_ ,” he managed. His cheeks felt hot. Could Jace see if he blushed, in this dimness? “Maybe there’s no God. But maybe – maybe we don’t need one. As long as we have people who care about us, we can look after each other without divine assistance.” He swallowed awkwardly. “You know?”

   Even in the dark, Simon could make out the intensity of Jace’s gaze – it had an almost tangible weight on his skin. The Nephilim’s eyes burned like embers, but for the life of him, Simon had no idea what Jace was thinking.

   The loud _bang!_ of the chest slamming shut nearly gave Simon a heart attack. “Let’s get going,” Jace ordered, getting to his feet, and this time Simon didn’t argue.

*

   The train journey uptown took place in silence. Simon tried not to spend the time thinking of all the ways a vampire could hurt a mouse, and failed: he felt sicker with every passing moment. Every once in a while Jace glanced over at him, as if about to speak, but he always caught himself and swallowed whatever he might have said.

   It took them an hour, once they left the subway, to find the hotel Magnus had spoken of. The night air was muggy with heat, plastering Simon’s shirt to his skin, but he felt cold somewhere down deep. Simiel was cool and dry against his palm, and Simon reminded himself that he’d killed a Forsaken with it – that he’d killed a Ravener, too. But he’d read and watched enough to know that before _Vampire Diaries_ (which predated _Twilight_ by a good few years, thanks very much, and was the original vampire-boy-in-high-school story as far as Simon knew) vampires were deeply terrifying monsters, not angsty whiners with a glittery skin condition. Those stories had to have come from somewhere, right?

   He had a feeling that killing Lestat would be a lot harder than taking out a Forsaken. But surely if Jace had thought there would be rampage and murder involved, he’d have brought Alec and Isabelle with them...?

   The world was asleep, with the run-down menace of a thug pointedly saying _and we’d like to keep it that way, thanks._ Simon was all too happy to leave the inhabitants of the Laundromats and bodegas fast asleep – he doubted they’d be happy to be woken by a pair of teenage vampire hunters, or particularly sympathetic to their plight. _Excuse me, miss, but have you seen a small brown mouse...?_

   They actually walked past the hotel twice. Simon was drawn taut as a wire by the time he finally spotted the sign and pointed it out to Jace; the thing was dangling behind a stunted tree, half-obscured by skeletal branches. HOTEL DUMONT, it should have said, but someone had painted a red R over the N.

   “Hotel Dumort,” Jace said dryly. “Cute.”

   Simon frowned at him.

   Jace caught the look. “It’s French,” he explained. “ _Du mort_ – it means ‘of death’.”

   “...Under the circumstances, that’s not very reassuring.” Simon’s stomach churned, taking in the boarded-up windows. The door had been bricked over, too. The Hotel Dumont had probably been beautiful once upon a time – the stone facade was carved with swirls and flowers that had seen too much exposure to the elements – but the Hotel Dumort was a mess. _Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Lestat. The Brat Prince wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this..._ “How do we get in?”

   “We break and enter.”

   Simon paused a moment to watch Jace move towards the hotel. There was an aura of excitement about him, an almost visible, excited intensity shimmering like a heat-haze around the blond. Simon suddenly remembered the way Jace had laughed in the fight with the Forsaken, battle-drunk like the ancient Viking berserkers. _Like Achilles_ , he thought, with a lurch. _Golden and unkillable and glorious..._

   “Stay out of the light,” Jace instructed, his voice pitched to carry only so far as Simon caught up with him. “They might be watching from the windows. And don’t look up,” he added, just as Simon caught a glance of the broken, fragmented windows of the upper floors. And hastily dropped his eyes to the pavement, wondering if he’d really seen what he’d thought he’d seen – a flicker, a ghost in one naked windowframe –

   “Come _on_.” Jace grabbed Simon’s sleeve and pulled him into the shadows. Belatedly, he noticed Simon’s glow-bracelets. “By the Angel, get _rid_ of those!”

   “Sorry, sorry!” Simon clawed them off, and the necklace with them. He hurriedly stuffed them all into a pocket, sick with nerves and hope and dread. His pulse beat staccato in his wrists; he wondered what the sound of it would look like as a rune, and what it would be called. _Scared shitless, probably._

   Jace led them around the corner, his black Shadowhunter boots soundless on the grimy pavement. Simon felt huge and disgustingly loud in comparison, and he clutched Simiel tightly for reassurance as they entered what had probably once been a delivery lane for the hotel. Like the Dumont it had fallen into disrepair; it stank of garbage and urine, the narrow space clogged with beer cans, bottles, plastic bags, cardboard boxes, and even a shopping cart, missing three wheels and propped forlornly against a trio of trash cans.

   Something crunched under Simon’s foot, and he bit back a yelp. And then swallowed his own lungs when he saw _what_ had crunched.

   “Bones.” Jace poked through a pile of them with the toe of his boot, impassive. “Dog bones, cat bones. Don’t look too closely; going through vampires’ trash is rarely a pretty picture.”

   Simon swallowed. _What about mouse bones?_ “Yeah, I got that, thanks.” He tried to look for rodent skeletons, but Jace kept them moving, past bricked-up windows and smooth walls unbroken by the faintest sign of a door.

   “When this was a hotel,” Jace murmured, “they must have gotten their deliveries here. I mean, they wouldn’t have brought things through the front door, and there’s nowhere else for trucks to pull up. So there must be a way in.”

   Simon pulled Simiel out of his pocket. He didn’t call the blade by name, and he hid the hilt’s silvery glow between his fingers, but squeezing it made him feel better. Made it easier to breathe, and think, and ignore the sick, spicy fear curdling in his gut. “In the ground,” he said softly. He pictured the trucks that pulled up outside the little shops and bodegas in Brooklyn, early in the morning as he and Clary walked to the subway for school. “The delivery doors – they’re in the ground.”

   Jace nodded and sighed. “That’s what I was thinking.” He gave the assorted mess the stink-eye. “I guess we’d better move the trash. We can start with the Dumpster.” He pointed.

   Simon snorted at the look on his face. “You’d rather face the hordes of Hell, wouldn’t you?”

   “At least they wouldn’t be crawling with maggots. Well,” Jace added thoughtfully, “not most of them, anyway. There was this one demon, once, that I tracked down to the sewers under Grand Central – ”

   “For Sephiroth’s sake, stop right there.” Simon, his lips twitching despite themselves, held up a hand to cut him off. “I’m not in the mood.”

   Jace raised a sculpted eyebrow, smirking. “That’s got to be the first time anybody’s ever said that to me.”

   “I promise, stick with me and it won’t be the last.”

   Jace’s mouth twitched. “This is hardly the time for idle banter. We have garbage to haul.”

   “Don’t remind me,” Simon muttered as Jace moved over to the Dumpster and grabbed one side of it.

   If Jace heard, he ignored him. “You get the other side. We’ll tip it.”

   Simon didn’t move. “And wake up everyone inside?” he asked, waving his hand at the hotel. “Don’t be an idiot. We should push it.” He paused, and pinched the bridge of his nose as the insaneness of their exchange settled into him. “I’m out hunting vampires, and we’re arguing about how to move garbage,” he said under his breath. “How the _hell_ do these things happen to me?”

   “Now look – ” Jace started, but a voice slid out of the darkness behind them, smooth and cool and amused.

   “Do you really think you should be doing that?”

   Simon found himself abruptly facing the other way, with no memory of moving or of drawing Simiel, but his lips automatically shaped the blade’s name in a whisper and the knife snapped out like a basilisk tooth. Jace stood frozen, raw surprise on his face, which scared Simon more than a mysterious voice: how often did anything manage to sneak up on Jace, and what did it say that this thing had?

   The blond’s hand fell to his belt, his voice flat. “Is there someone there?”

   “ _Dios mío._ ” Male, amused, and – to Simon’s inexperienced ear – a native Spanish speaker. “You’re not from this neighbourhood, are you?”

   A figure stepped out of the thickest shadows as if stepping out of a cloak. In the darkness, Simon’s eyes took him in slowly. The speaker was a boy, around Simon and Jace’s age and about five inches shorter than Simon; he was slender, with a delicate bone structure that should have looked feminine, but didn’t. It _did_ make him almost stunningly good-looking, especially in combination with the open-necked white shirt revealing a tantalising slice of his honey-gold skin. A gold chain glinted around his throat: Simon remembered the bronze necklace Jace had worn in his dream, and blinked.

   “You could say that.” Jace’s hand didn’t leave his belt, and whatever weapons he had stowed there. Simon didn’t put Simiel away, either.

   “You shouldn’t be here.” The boy drew a hand through his thick black curls. “This place is dangerous.”

   _No shit._ Simiel wasn’t glowing, for once. Why? Because it, like Simon, was worried this stranger was a mun – not a Downworlder, and didn’t want to give itself away as something magical? Could seraph blades think? _There_ was a disturbing question.

   But it was a bit too damn coincidental that somebody would stop and warn off a pair of strangers. That wasn’t how bad neighbourhoods worked – was it? People _didn’t_ stop if you got in trouble. And – they were right outside a vampire hotel.

   _And_ , what kind of non-Downworlder could have snuck up on them without Jace noticing?

   Simiel lit up with crystalline fire.

   The boy glanced at it with wide eyes, but his surprise took just a breath too long to settle over his face. “What is _that?_ ”

   Jace moved so that his jacket fell open a little; Simiel’s light fell on the weapons thrust through his belt. “How much are they paying you to keep people away from the hotel?”

   Jace hadn’t quite reasoned out as far as Simon had. “Jace,” Simon said softly, but the Shadowhunter – probably sensibly – didn’t take his eyes off the stranger.

   Who glanced behind him. Simon chilled, unwillingly picturing the mouth of the alleyway blocked by more vampires – clotted with them like a wound, corpse-white with splinters behind their lips. Simiel flared brighter, and the stranger glanced at it as he turned back to them. “How much are who paying me, _chico?_ ”

   “The vampires,” Jace said. “How much are they paying you? Or is it something else – did they tell you they’d make you one of them? Offer you eternal life, with no pain, no sickness, you get to live forever? Because it’s not worth it. Life stretches out a very long time when you never see the sunlight, _chico_.”

    “My name is Raphael. Not _chico_ ,” was the boy’s only response.

   _And he’s already a vampire_ , Simon thought. What was that supposed to make him feel? Should the Nephilim blood in his veins make him hate Raphael, for what he was? If it was supposed to, it wasn’t working. Simon didn’t even feel afraid; only cold, cold and clear as snow-melt water over glass. Simiel sang against his palm, singing to the bones in his hand, and he heard the blade’s Marks: the rustle of wings whose feathers were steel and gold, a scream loud and high enough to shatter mirrors and eardrums, starlight played on windchimes, the _hiss_ of a match catching in a dark room and the _drip_ of blood on a stone floor. Or maybe tears.

   “We’re looking for a friend of mine,” he heard himself say. “The vampires took her. We’re here to get her back.”

   Raphael pointed at the hotel behind them. “There were some boys, once, a group of friends. They thought they had a good idea, to go into the hotel and kill the monsters inside. They took guns with them, knives too – all blessed by a priest. They never came out. My aunt, she found their clothes later, in front of the house.”

   “Your aunt’s house?” Jace asked.

   “ _Sí_. One of the boys was my brother,” Raphael said bluntly. “And so I walk by here in the middle of the night sometimes, on the way home from my aunt’s house – to warn people like you away. If your friend is gone, then she is gone. Remember her, weep for her, but do not follow her into the dark also.”

   Jace smiled, the curve of it so sharp and wicked that Simon wanted to bite it. “Don’t worry. What happened to your friends won’t happen to us.” He drew an angel blade from his belt to match Simon’s; like Simiel, it glowed, with a silvery, wavery light like sunlight on the bottom of a pool. “I’ve killed plenty of vampires before. Their hearts don’t beat, but they still die.”

   Raphael glanced between Jace and Simon, inhaling sharply. “Then I want to go with you.”

   Jace jerked his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

   “I can show you how to get inside!”

   Jace hesitated, plainly tempted. Simon’s heart raced, trying to think of a way to warn Jace against Raphael. But there didn’t seem to be any way of doing that without alerting the vampire that Simon was on to him.

   But he didn’t need to. “We can’t bring you,” Jace said finally, and Simon suppressed a sigh of relief.

   Raphael shrugged. “Fine.” Instantly Simon felt his hackles rise, suspicious and wary of the boy’s easy capitulation. He gripped Simiel tightly as Raphael stalked past him and kicked at a pile of trash near the wall of the alley, ready to – what?

   _What will you do if he turns on you?_

 _Whatever I have to,_ he told the voice without hesitation. _They have Clary._

   Raphael stepped back, sweeping his hand to show them the newly revealed metal grating. The bars were covered in brown-red rust – _or blood_ , Simon thought – and he only had a moment to examine them before Raphael knelt down, heedless of the rubbish, and lifted the grating away. “This is how my brother and his friends got in,” he told them. “It goes down to the basement, I think.”

   A thin smile, like the wound left by a thin blade, formed at the corners of Jace’s lips. The light from the seraph blade he held cast eerie shadows over his face. “Thanks,” he said to Raphael. “This will work just fine.”

   _It’s a God-damn trap!_

   “You go in there,” Raphael said to Jace, “and do for your friend what I could not do for my brother.”

   _No._ Jace sheathed the blade at his belt, and Simon opened his mouth to speak, because forget about warning Raphael, Simon _could not_ let them walk into an ambush. That was the kind of stupendous idiocy that lent itself to disaster.

   But Jace said, “Follow me,” and vanished into the dark space of the grate feet first. It swallowed him up in an instant and Simon nearly cried out a protest, his ears straining for sounds of pain or attack.

   Instead there was just the smooth, soft _thump_ of feet landing easily on solid ground. “It’s fine,” Jace called up softly. “Jump down and I’ll catch you.”

   _Like a damsel in distress?_ Simon glanced warily at Raphael, unwilling to give the vampire his back. Simiel’s light licked over Raphael’s skin, touching a small scar at the boy’s throat as if with a finger. As if the seraph blade were saying _look_.

   _I see it,_ Simon thought at his weapon. A tiny cross shape. So crosses really did burn vampires.

   “Simon, come on!” Jace hissed.

   Simon swallowed. Raphael held out a hand, but Simon ignored it. _This is really fucking stupid,_ he thought helplessly – and dropped himself down over the edge before he could psych himself out of it.

   He was braced for a much longer fall, and despite Jace’s promise, he had not expected the other boy to actually catch him. When hands reached out from the dark and snatched him out of the air his lizard brain had Simiel flashing for those wrists before he recognised them, before he felt callused fingers on the skin of his waist below his rucked-up shirt and saw gold eyes turned dark in Simiel’s witchlight.

   Jace let him go nearly instantly. “You all right?”

   “I’m fine.” His pulse beat hard against the insides of his wrists.

   Jace once again drew his seraph blade. Between it and Simiel, the soft light illuminated their surroundings: a small concrete space that did indeed seem to be an old basement. Vines crawled up some of the cracked walls, and patches of dirt showed through the broken-up floor. There was dust everywhere: Simon wondered if he should be worrying about leaving tracks in it.

   A loud, now-familiar _thump_ sounded behind them. Simon whirled to see Raphael caught in mid-landing, his knees bent to absorb the impact. He straightened up even as they watched, grinning wickedly.

   Simon’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of that grin. _This is it, this is where he makes his play –_

“I told you – ” Jace hissed furiously.

   “And I heard you.” Raphael waved his hand dismissively. “What are you going to do about it? I can’t get back out the way we came in, and you can’t just leave me here for the dead to find...can you?”

   “I’m thinking about it,” Jace muttered.

   Raphael pointed. “We must go that way, toward the stairs. They are up on the higher floors of the hotel. You will see.” He pushed past Jace and through the narrow doorway waiting where he had pointed. Jace shook his head, looking as though he was wondering how it had all gotten so out of hand.

   “I’m really starting to hate mundanes.”

   Simon glanced after Raphael’s vanishing back. How good was vampire hearing? Didn’t matter – this was probably his only chance. “He’s _not_ a mundane,” he whispered urgently. “Jace – Raphael’s a vampire!”

   Jace blinked at him. For a second, Simon thought he looked impressed, but then the moment was gone, replaced by a blank, professional coolness. “I know,” he said.


	17. Chapter 17

   “You _know?”_ Simon hissed. “Then what the Hell are you doing trusting him?”

   Jace grinned, wicked and wild. “First rule of an ambush: surprise,” he said. “They can’t ambush us if we’re expecting it.”

   Simon had said nearly the exact same thing to Jace outside Dorothea’s apartment. He finally understood why Jace had been so frustrated with him then. _“Are you insane?”_ he demanded, only just remembering to keep his voice to a low, furious whisper.

   “It has been suggested to me,” Jace allowed. “I prefer to think of myself as an unappreciated genius.”

   “You’re an unappreciated _something_ ,” Simon muttered. The thought of walking into a trap curdled in his stomach – but then, what choice did they have? Clary was in here somewhere – turning around and going back wasn’t an option. _Pretend it’s a video game_ , he told himself, and let out a short hiss of breath. “Fine. Let’s catch him up.”

   _Just a video game. Like the Forsaken was._

_NOT._

   Without another word, the two of them walked quickly after Raphael. He had paused a little way into the next room, waiting for them, and Simon hoped nervously that the vampire hadn’t been able to hear their whispers. He rubbed his thumb over Simiel’s hilt, trying to allow himself to be reassured by the coolness of the crystal, by the sensation of having something solid to depend on, and used the seraph blade to illuminate the dim corners. Over and over in his mind, he imagined snarling creatures with bloodstained mouths leaping out at them from the shadows. Every empty storage room was an entrance to Tartarus, the abandoned kitchen was stocked with rust-stained weapons of death – even the laundry room, drowned in dust and mould, could have provided hiding places for enterprising vampires, with its piles of rotting linen towels and stacked laundry baskets. The tension wound tighter and tighter in Simon’s gut and throat with every step, as if his adrenalin had been spiked with cocaine. It got to the point that Simon almost wanted to scream into the dark for the vampires to _come and get me already!_ , just to get it over with.

   Simiel grew brighter and brighter in his hand, driving the shadows away. _Look, it’s safe, there’s nothing there._ Simon could almost hear the blade’s voice, soft and soothing. _Don’t be afraid._

_Not yet._

   Jace glanced at Simon’s knife with an unreadable expression, but he didn’t tell Simon to put it away. Not even when the corridor was lit almost as brightly as it must have been years ago, when it was full of people working, carrying clean sheets and covered plates to the guests upstairs...

   Speaking of stairs: there weren’t any. One after another they found the remains of four staircases that should have led to the upper floors, but the stairs themselves were gone. Not rotted away like so much else in this crypt of a hotel, but torn down by deliberate hands.

   _“Cloud’s unholy angst_ , what do vampires have against stairs?” Simon snapped in exasperation when they found the fourth destroyed stairway.

   “Ssh,” Raphael hissed. “They will hear you.”

    Simon glared at him.

   “They don’t have anything against stairs,” Jace whispered, his breath curling warmly against Simon’s ear, and Simon’s aborted jump of surprise at the unexpected proximity melted into a shiver. “They just don’t need them.”

   Simon swallowed, and caught Raphael watching them, a speculative frown resting lightly on his face. He smiled when he saw Simon looking, and turned back to the search for a working staircase.

   They finally found one, hidden behind the second laundry room. Dust lay on the steps like a second carpet, unmarked by footprints, and Simon wondered if Jace had meant that vampires could fly. Whether they did or not, the stairs seemed sound – they didn’t even creak as the three boys made their way up them, which Simon considered a minor miracle. He was grateful for it – he thought his strained nerves might have snapped completely if their every step had been announced by a haunted-house _creeeeeeeak._

   _When all this is over, I’m going to commit myself to the psych ward and have a nice holiday, with lovely drugs and straitjackets and white walls. And sunshine. And no demonic thingies ANYWHERE._

   The door at the top of the stairs announced LOBBY in faded gilt, and when Jace pushed it open the hinges showered flakes of rust onto the floor. Simon held Simiel out in front of him, taut and ready –

   But there was nothing. The foyer they stepped into was empty, a gutted mess of torn carpet and crystal fragments from a shattered chandelier, its crippled arms reaching sadly from where it lay cast-aside on the floor. Once upon a time a double staircase, the kind that bore princesses down to their waiting princes, had half-filled the room with gilt and red velvet; now it ended in mid-air halfway up its length, leaving a wide empty space between the last step and the second floor. Looking at it, Simon felt a chill run down his spine, like a ghost’s fingertip skimming over his vertebrae.

   _This is not a human place._

   “Where are they?” Simon whispered. The heavy silence weighed on them, muffling every sound, and he thought it again: _this is not a place for my kind, for any breathing thing._

   “Upstairs, probably,” Jace murmured. “They like to be high up when they sleep, like bats. And it’s nearly sunrise.”

   Simon glanced up instinctively, but there were no Vanhelsing-esque bat-monsters hanging from the ceiling by their feet, only a blackened fresco, smeared with dirt and ash. All in all, he preferred the fresco.

   “You’re going to have to call out to Clary and hope she can hear you,” Jace pointed out quietly.

   Simon swallowed. _And all the vampires too._ Raphael might not have heard his and Jace’s whispers, but no way would anyone miss him shouting loud enough for Clary to hear. “Right,” he whispered. “I – ”

   A scream shattered the silence. Simon snapped around and Raphael was gone, vanished, without the slightest scuff in the dust to show where he’d gone.

   “Move!” Jace snarled, wrenching at Simon’s shoulder, and Simon stumbled after him, Simiel clenched tightly in his fist. The archway in the far wall gaped like a kraken’s mouth and the boys flung themselves through it, but the darkness beyond had no chance to swallow them: Simiel _blazed_ , a star caught in crystal like an insect in amber, and a hundred gilt-framed mirrors sent the blade’s light flashing back at them. Simon had a confused impression of cracked white marble beneath his feet and rust-kissed balconies curving above his head before he spotted Raphael.

   Between one step and the next, Jace flung a knife. It slammed into Raphael’s chest and the vampire went down, but Simon didn’t stop to watch: a flurry of motion in the corner of his eyes and he was staring, the pit of his stomach dropping away as he saw rank after rank of corpse-white creatures filing onto the balconies on all sides, red mouths like wounds and eyes dead as glass staring back at him with something so far beyond mere amusement that there were no human words for it.

   _Oh yeah, Jace. As long as we KNOW there’s an ambush coming, we have no problem. None whatsoever._

   If they got out of this alive, Simon was going to kill the cocky blond bastard. And then bring him back to life and _kill him again._

   _Do not think about how you might actually die. Do not think about it. Do not think about it. Do not –_

Jace lunged for the prone Raphael, but the vampire was already sitting up, with a smooth, graceful motion that had abandoned all pretences of mortality. He grabbed hold of the knife in his chest – and screamed, a high, piercing shriek that was as much fury as pain. He ripped the blade out of himself and hurled it away, and its cross-shaped hilt caught and sparked in Simiel’s light. Blood soaked Raphael’s white shirt, and a part of Simon thought _so vampires bleed. Huh._

   Jace reached Raphael and hauled him upright with a hand in the bloodstained shirt. His seraph blade – Sanvi, Simon remembered inanely – turned Raphael’s dark eyes white with reflected light.

   “You missed,” Raphael laughed, all traces of agony wiped away. He grinned up at Jace, baring sickle-sharp teeth. “You missed my heart.”

   Sanvi moved to Raphael’s chest. “I won’t a second time,” he said softly, and Raphael fell silent.

   Simon cleared his throat. “Um, Jace? We kind of have company.” The crowd of vampires made him think of a pack of cats watching a pair of mice.

   “I know.” Jace didn’t look away from Raphael. He was holding himself almost violently still, if stillness could be violent, and without making a single move Simon could suddenly read the pattern of Jace’s quick pants, could hear it like a song and knew it like music – understood, sharply, just how badly Jace wanted to shove Sanvi through the vampire’s heart.

   Glancing at the taut, trembling tension running through the gathered vampires, Simon guessed that killing Raphael would be a _very bad idea_. Their lair-mate’s fate seemed to be the only thing holding back the dark tide of them.

   Jace made no move, which suggested that he’d worked out the same thing. But he also made no move to speak, to take control of the situation, and Simon was going to kill him _multiple times_ when this was over.

   “Okay, look,” he said loudly before he could stop himself. “Sorry for not using the doorbell, but you don’t have one, and also, you have a friend of ours here. We’d like her back.”

   A murmur of laughter ran through the vampires. “So? You think to bargain with us?”

   The voice came from a balcony behind him. Before Simon could turn to answer it another vampire spoke, this time in his line of sight; an Asian girl with blue hair, exceptionally pretty. Did vampirism make people pretty, like in the _Twilight_ books, or did only good-looking people get offered immortality? “Shadowhunters trespassing on our territory,” she hissed. “They are out of the protection of the Covenant. I say we kill them – they have killed enough of ours.”

   This time the murmur was one of agreement. It was like drowning – the weight of the fear that slammed down on him left Simon dizzy and sick and unable to breathe.

   “Which of you is the master of this place?” Jace asked, his voice utterly bland. “Let him step forward.”

   Again, that shivery, inhuman laughter, rippling through the crowd although Simon saw no one’s lips move. “Do not use Clave language on us, Shadowhunter,” the blue-haired girl said. “You have broken your precious Covenant, coming here. The Law will not protect you.”

   “Your friend here will be dead before you get over that balcony,” Jace said softly.

   The girl shrugged. “One vampire for two Shadowhunters. A bargain.”

   Two Shadowhunters and Clary, wherever she was. _I cannot die here. Clary – mom – I can’t fail them, I can’t –_

Movement, like the ripple of a shoal about to change direction; a handful of vampires swung out to perch on the balcony rails like birds and a few went still further, dropping down like falling angels through the air and landing on the floor in cat-like crouches. One of them hissed and then they were all doing it, the sound sweeping to engulf the room, stabbing directly into his lizard brain as more and more of them plunged from the balconies and the fear – it didn’t snap him into anger, or any kind of Limit Break. It _broke_ him, the panic and ice-cold terror too much to hold and it shattered out of him, a glass bottle forced too full and the shards snowstormed through his head and Simon _screamed_ and a supernova exploded from his hand, the searing white light of a nuclear bomb and a hundred, _hundreds_ of other voices screaming as everything went white and light and blind –

    He saw two alien music notes in his head, heard the mirrors shatter under the force of the light and there, two notes overlapping like a Venn diagram, together making up Simiel’s song; one sharp and jagged and familiar from its place on Jace’s arm, _angelic power_ , the sound of wings whose feathers were steel and gold; the other sweet and unfamiliar, breathtaking-breath stopping, the sigil of it sinuous and strong but he couldn’t quite _hear it_ over the screaming –

   The light cut off, plunging them all into darkness. The screams stopped a breath later, and with a shudder Simon’s legs gave out from under him. Simiel clattered onto the floor with a sound like ice on ice as Simon fell onto his hands and knees, gasping for air, shaking so hard that he thought he would come apart at the seams. He felt weak as a kitten, like the aftermath of a fever, and his throat burned fiercely.

   _What in Enma’s name_ was _that?_

   _Did I do that?_

   His ears were full of echoes. He blinked, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. Sanvi was glimmering still, rippling like back-lit water. Its glow caressed Jace’s cheekbones, painting shadows and silver over his face.

   There was something terrifyingly close to awe in Jace’s expression. Something like amazement, and pride, and it was like alchemy; like a lit match dropping onto a pool of oil Simon caught fire, his confusion burning up in a wild rush of proud excitement.

   _That was so incredibly cool!_

   Belatedly, he realised that Jace was no longer holding Raphael; the vampire had been blown some distance away by the blast, a barely-visible shadow on the floor. The dark shape groaned, and Simon jumped, his heart racing again. When he stretched his hand out for Simiel – he could have _sworn_ the seraph blade moved, just an inch or two, sliding against his fingers like iron filings drawn to a magnet, but there wasn’t time, Simon sensed, to check; he snatched up the knife and pushed himself up off the floor, feeling the rush of whatever he’d done spin into something hard and cold and glittering as he stood up. Straw into steel.

   “The only bargain you’re getting today,” he said loudly, and the whispers and whimpers stopped dead at the sound of his voice, “is your lives for our friend.”

   “We don’t have anyone here!” Someone cried. She sounded panicked. _Good_ , Simon thought, frosty and sharp. _They have Clary. They_ should _be afraid of us._ “We don’t have your friend!”

   “She’s a mouse,” Jace said. He moved to stand closer to Simon; the glow of their seraph blades mingled and kissed. “At the moment.”

   A silence.

   “You’re doing all this for a mouse?”

   Jace smiled. “Does it matter why we’re doing it, so long as we don’t do it again?”

   “Don’t.” Another voice, this one choking on a sob. “Please – please don’t do it again.”

   Simon felt a quiver of guilt, a curl of uncertainty, but he forced it down. _Clary._

   “The mouse,” he said coldly.

   “H-here.” Someone else, and Simon heard slow, deliberate footsteps, as if the vampire wanted to make sure Simon and Jace heard him coming. “I – I’m sorry. I th-thought she was Zeke.”

   A figure took shape out of the shadows, slowly. Beside Simon Jace raised Sanvi warningly, and the vampire cringed. He was a slender African American boy, his hair falling in dreadlocks around his face, and as he tentatively came closer Simon saw that he had something in his hands.

   “Clary?” he whispered.

   The little shape squeaked, and Simon’s heart leapt. “Clary!”

   Before he could reach for her, Raphael – forgotten on the floor – sprang. With a savage hiss he snatched Clary from the black vampire’s hands, and despite his fear for Clary Simon recoiled, bile burning his throat as he caught a glimpse of Raphael’s face in Sanvi’s light: it was all seared flesh and charred skin, sickening and terrible, the face of a nightmare, and it slammed into Simon’s mind with all the blunt force of a hammer blow. _I did that_ , he thought with growing horror, _I did that to another person – that light, it_ burnt _him –_

_All of them –_

   But the black vampire wasn’t burned – had he been protected from the blast by his friends, maybe? Raphael had been closer –

   “Give her back, Raphael,” Jace snapped fiercely, and Simon came back to himself with a jolt.

   _Clary._

   “I think not.” Raphael’s voice – it was sandpaper-rough, his words edged in gravel and slate. Clary thrashed, squeaking fiercely in his tight grip, and Simon panicked: if he squeezed too tightly...She was only a _mouse_ , Raphael could break her so easily – ! “Something so valuable should not be given away for free, little Nephilim. Even one such as you should know that.”

   Panic. Fear. Fury. Simon didn’t look, but Raphael and Clary became more visible as Simiel began to brighten again, and this time Simon didn’t flinch at the torched mincemeat that was the vampire’s face. The other vampire, with the dreadlocks, hurriedly lunged back into the shadows. “Give her back,” Simon said softly. The same voice that had snarled when striking down the Forsaken warrior; the same one that had offered the vampires their lives for Clary. Later, he would be shocked that he had that voice in him; later he would be scared. But right now Simiel was cool crystal under his fingers and Clary needed him and Simon wanted to burn Raphael to _ash_ for daring to lay a finger on her.

   It was impossible to read Raphael’s expression. He didn’t have one: his face seeped plasma, all cooked muscle and destroyed skin. But even as Simon watched, Raphael seemed to be healing, fresh new skin crawling over the gaping charred holes. Like silk over rot. “Now why would I do that?” His eyes, at least, were whole, unmarred and gleaming. “You think we do not hear the rumours, the news that is running through the Downworld like blood through veins? Valentine is back. There will be no Accords and no Covenant soon enough. What reason do I have to listen to _you?_ ”

   Simon felt his lips curve, sweet and sharp as ice. “You know, from what I hear of the Accords, they protect you guys too. Without them...” He pointed at Jace with his free hand. “He has to catch you to kill you.” His hand fell. “I don’t.” He had no idea if he could call the burning light again, but there was no reason to let them know that.

   “Give them the mouse, Raphael!” A girl’s voice. On another day Simon would have felt sick about hearing such desperation in a girl’s voice, and knowing he had been the one to put it there. Right now he only hoped Raphael heard it too. “Make them go away!”

   Raphael hesitated.

   And howled with pain. Clary fell from his hands and darted towards Jace and Simon, who automatically swooped to scoop her up in a rush of elated relief.

   “Clary,” he breathed.

   “She bit me.” Raphael sounded stunned. Blood dripped from his burnt hand and Simon laughed, running quick fingers over Clary’s fur to make sure she was all right. She seemed to be.

   Even Jace was amused. “Don’t mess with the mouse,” he grinned at Raphael, and the vampire’s face contorted with rage.

   He threw himself at Jace with a roar. Sanvi flashed and Simon froze, torn between protecting Clary and going to Jace’s aid for just a heartbeat too long.

   “Help me!” Raphael shrieked. It was so dark – he and Jace were struggling shadows, Titans wrestling in the dark of Tartarus with only Sanvi for a star between them. “Kill them both – and the mouse too!”

   _Fuck._ Simon clutched Clary tightly against his chest. _Fuck, fuck, not this again –_ Surely the vampires wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually _listen_ to Raphael, not after what had happened the first time – ?

   Someone crashed into him from behind and, okay, apparently some of them _were_ stupid enough. Simon went down under the weight, only panicked desperation fuelling him to twist mid-fall so he landed on his side instead of on Clary. A sharp razor of pain slashed across his shoulder and he yelled, astounded by how much it hurt: Simiel’s light burst through his fingers like pearly water and there was another burning line carved across his upper back and Simon thought of broken necks, of paralysis and broken-glass teeth and Jace saying _accept that you’re going to get hurt_.

   _Pain is water and you are diamond._

   Simon twisted around with a snarl, lashing out with his seraph blade and Clary was squeaking and the vampire at his back cried out, vanishing away in a blur of shadow and the smoke rising from his skin. The rucksack dug into Simon’s back and he didn’t dare try and get Clary into it in case he landed on it but he rushed to his feet, _you are diamond you are diamond you are diamond_ and the darkness was full of flitting shapes and he could smell blood and smoke and dust and Simiel grew brighter and brighter and _how dare you, how do you dare_.

   _“Come on!”_ Simon screamed, brandishing his knife, his sword, spinning in place to track the vampires that don’t quite dare after all and he is diamond, he is fire and magma and sky, he has earthquakes and clockwork inside him and the air is silky-slow against his skin. _“Come and get me!”_

   Breaking glass. Simiel’s light surged, not quite as blinding as before but almost; Simon caught a glimpse of cobwebbed-adorned chandeliers, faded gilt on the ceiling and dozens of vampires, vampires screaming with gaping red mouths at the monsters coming through the windows, four-legged and furred, streamlined with hard, powerful muscle and their coats gleaming in Simiel’s glow. They hit the floor like an avalanche, and the sound they made was a rock-fall, deep and rumbling from all of their throats, and Simon could hardly believe his eyes.

   Wolves.

   Before he could take a breath they attacked, moving like water, a river of black-brown-russet-sandy gold-grey-white that crashed over the vampires. Simon jerked back, then realised – no. It wasn’t an attack. The werewolves (what else could they be?) crashed _through_ the vampires, brushing them aside as a river brushes driftwood, but it wasn’t an attack.

   “HOW DARE YOU ENTER OUR PLACE?” Raphael screamed. He stepped forward, bloodied and dirty but now almost completely whole – his only injuries looked as though they’d been inflicted by Sanvi. He looked about to have an apoplexy.

   But – where was Ja –

   A hand clapped over his mouth. “Ssh,” Jace hissed against his ear, before Simon could finish the thought or shriek. “Be very, very quiet. And still. _Be still_.”

   He lowered his hand and Simon didn’t even shiver, the importance of Jace’s mouth so close to him overtaken by the _freaking werewolves._ “The fuck is going on?” he hissed.

   “I don’t know. Vampires and werewolves – they never come to each other’s lairs. Never. The Covenant forbids it.” Simon wished he could see Jace’s face as he said, “Something must have happened. This is bad. Very bad.”

   “How can it possibly be any worse than it was a minute ago?” Simon demanded in a whisper.

   “Because,” Jace said, “we’re about to be in the middle of a war.”

    Simiel’s light didn’t seem to be burning anyone this time. The ballroom was almost fully illuminated, which meant Simon had no trouble watching the largest wolf pad forward, his grey fur almost exactly the colour of the great white shark his fanged grin reminded Simon of. Between one step and the next, he _changed_ – not the grotesque, visceral transformation of Professor Lupin in _Harry Potter_ , but quick and smooth like Sirius Black. Only instead of going from man to dog, the wolf became a tall, thickly muscled human man, with hair the same colour as his fur hanging around his shoulders in a matted mess. Unlike Sirius, he could apparently bring clothes through his change, because he was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. Simon was grateful for that much mercy.

   At least, until the werewolf announced, with a distinctly wolfish grin, “We’re not here for a blooding. We came for the boy.”

   Jace stiffened, and Simon felt ice in the pit of his stomach. “Who?” Raphael asked. It was impressive, really – he managed to be utterly astonished without relinquishing one drop of his anger.

   “The human boy.” And as Simon had known he would, the werewolf jabbed a blunt finger at him.

   Jace swore. “Please tell me this isn’t Sebastian,” he muttered under his breath.

   “What? No! Sebastian’s way sexier,” Simon said without thinking.

   Jace hissed through his teeth instead of laughing. “This is bad.”

   “You already said that.” Simon’s voice hitched. Everyone was looking at him – dozens upon dozens of astonished faces, staring at him with complete disbelief.

   “It seemed worth repeating.”

   “You can’t have him,” Raphael announced decisively. He folded his arms over his chest. “He trespassed on our ground; therefore he’s ours.”

   The werewolf laughed. “I’m _so_ glad you said that.” Before the words were even all out of his mouth he leapt for Raphael, changing in mid-air; the creature that crashed into Raphael’s chest was all wolf, as big as those horse-sized monsters from _Twilight_. Werewolf and vampire smashed to the floor in a tangle of blood and teeth, and inhuman shrieks met and clashed with canine howls as their followers followed suit.

   The sound of it – this was _war_ , screams and cries and snarls, and Simon heard it, the note for it, a tangled, writhing knot with jagged edges, burning in his head. It made him sick – or maybe that was just the sight and sound of the chaos erupting around them on all sides.

   Jace whistled. “Raphael is really having an exceptionally bad night.” He sounded pleased.

   “Who cares?!” Simon clutched Clary carefully; she was trembling, and no wonder. “Put Clary in my bag, and let’s get out of here!”

   Jace reached for her, but before he could pick her up Clary leapt. Fearlessly, she jumped from Simon’s hands to the floor; Simon swallowed a cry, terrified that she’d hurt herself. But no – she scampered away, dodging and weaving between the monsters doing battle. “Clary!”

   “Damned _athumos_ ,” Jace cursed as Simon ran after her, but the Shadowhunter followed them.

   “Clary!” Simon shouted, too scared for her to worry about catching Raphael’s attention again. “Stop! Come back here, you idiot!”

   But she didn’t. Instead, she plunged into a pile of rotted velvet curtains, shoved up against a corner. Simon, right behind her, threw himself to his knees and started tearing through the crumbling fabric. “Clary, I will burn every single one of your sketchpads, I swear to _God_ – ”

   He clawed through the disgusting velvet with one hand and Simiel in the other, frantically searching for her. With an eye-roll, Jace got down and helped, continuously glancing over his shoulder to keep an eye on their surroundings. The curtains were slimy with mould, and would have been nauseating at any other time, but Clary was in here somewhere – he could hear her squeaking –

   He shoved the last few aside, and found her, sitting right next to –

   “A door. A door! You _genius_ , Clary!”

   Even as a mouse, Clary managed to look smug.

   Simon swept her up again and cuddled her. Even Jace looked impressed. “That was quick thinking,” he allowed.

   Simon grinned at him. “You’re just sour because the mouse had a better escape plan than you.”

   Rolling his eyes again, Jace playfully shoved Simon aside. “Get out of the way so I can get this thing open.”

   The door was locked, of course. Jace threw his shoulder against it, but it didn’t so much as creak. He swore, rubbing the bruised joint. “My shoulder will never be the same. I hope you’re prepared to nurse me back to health.”

   “Get us out of here and I’ll even wear the costume.” Scratching behind her ears gratefully, Simon tucked Clary safely away in the rucksack.

   Jace turned to him, his lips parted for a come-back – and his eyes went wide. “Simon – ”

   Simon turned. They’d been noticed at last; a huge brindled wolf had caught sight of them and was running directly for them, shouldering aside the vampires who tried to deter him. They looked twig-like in comparison, like fragile dolls, and the werewolf didn’t even glance at them: his blue-fire eyes were locked on Simon.

   Jace hurled himself at the door again – but slowly. So slowly. He moved in slow motion, and Simon could see every drop of sweat on his forehead, every golden hair in high definition, crisp and perfect. The wolf’s paws sl-ow-ly hit the floor, and sl-ow-ly lifted up again, o-n-e by o-n-e. There was eons of time for Simon to half-turn and pluck a knife from Jace’s belt, as easily as picking an apple from a tree. But this fruit was sharp and gleaming, and the wolf was in the middle of the same step, and Simon didn’t want to lose Simiel so he threw Jace’s dagger instead, a crisp, snapping motion of his wrist.

   Simon remembered marvelling when, in Biology, Mr Yakolev had told them of the difficulties people had in creating a machine that could catch a ball. Every day, billions of human beings caught things thrown at them: footballs, baseballs, tennis balls, fruit, pillows – anything. You only fumbled a catch when you over-thought it; leave your brain and muscles to it, and 9 times out of 10 you caught the thing. The same was true of throwing something at a target. Because the human brain could work out trajectories in an instant that the world’s most powerful super computers struggled with.

   Simon was not an athlete. He didn’t play football, baseball, _or_ tennis. He almost always missed or dropped anything tossed to him. But this time – with everything so slow and sharp and clear – it was the easiest thing in the world to see where the knife had to go, and how to get it there.

   And the blade sank deep into the werewolf’s side, just above his right foreleg.

   It yelped and skidded to a halt, but three more were already on its heels and the syrup-slow world snapped in half and Jace hit the door again. It screeched in protest, all rust and unhappy wood, but it gave and Jace snatched at Simon’s wrist, wrenching him through it into the dark space beyond.

   “Third time’s the charm,” Jace panted, and Simon had the presence of mind to kick the door shut behind him. Darkness swallowed them, only Simiel and Sanvi casting their ghostly light to illuminate Jace’s face as he ordered, “Out of the way!”

   Simon ducked and Jace’s stele snapped out like a sword, slashing a staunch note into the door. Simon glanced at it and heard something he’d never heard in real life, only in movies like _Lord of the Rings_ : the bellow of a horn ringing out over a battlefield, aching and spiralling.

   _To hold against pursuit._

   “Your dagger,” Simon began, but Jace just shook his head.

   “It happens.” He put the stele away. “We’d better hurry. The rune will keep them back, but not for long.”

   Even as he spoke Simon could hear the thumps and thuds of someone – presumably the wolves – throwing themselves against the door. It shuddered, and bits of dust and flakes of stone drifted down from the top of the doorway with each hit. Simon swallowed. “Wonderful idea. I’ll be right behind you.”

   Jace grinned tiredly at him. Sanvi’s light flashed off his teeth, making them gleam like vampire fangs, and for the first time Simon saw that Jace wasn’t in his usual perfect shape. His clothes were torn, and – was that blood? “Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. He took a step towards the blond, raising Simiel so he could better examine Jace’s wounds. The motion pulled at the injury to his shoulder, and he winced, trying to reach up and touch it.

   Jace caught his wrist before he could. “It’ll only make it worse,” he said simply. “Come on. Once we’re out of here we can take care of them properly.”

   Jace’s fingertips were pressed right over Simon’s pulse. Simon swallowed again.

   Deferring to the Shadowhunter’s expertise, he lowered his hand and followed Jace up the stairs waiting at the end of the damp, mouldering passageway. The wooden steps spiralled up into the darkness, dusty and uncertain, but there was no choice except to trust them. Simon tried not to wince as they groaned under his feet – and managed to swallow his cry of surprise when part of the banister came off in his hand.

   They went so slowly – wary of a weak step giving way and sending them plummeting – and the staircase rose so endlessly that Simon began to wonder if they would ever reach the top. And of course, because that was how this new reality he’d found himself in _worked_ , it was at that precise moment that a muffled explosion rocked the stairwell.

   Simon glared up at the ceiling. “I didn’t even say it!”

   Jace, looking down in the opposite direction, ignored him. “They’ve gotten past the door,” he said grimly. “Damn. I thought it would hold for longer.”

   A sensation like the tip of a dagger running down his vertebrae. “Now what?” Simon asked. Without thinking, he lowered his voice to a whisper.

   “Now we run.”

   Without discussing it further they burst into motion at the same moment, two parts of the same whole and Simon spared a thought to pray for the stairs to hold before conscious thought was swept away in the tide of _run, run, run._ Despite his injuries Jace moved smoothly and easily, but Simon’s body screamed at him, almost loud enough to drown out the screeching shrieks of the steps under their feet. His shoulder and back burned where the vampire had – what? Bitten him, clawed him? _Hurt_ him, and his rucksack banged against his spine with every step, his breath clawing at the inside of his throat, but he didn’t dare stop or beg for a respite. He swore he could make out the wolves’ paws thudding on step after step down below, and he could _definitely_ hear them howling: the sound shot up through the stairwell like a gleaming silver arrow, searching for its target.

   Which was _them_.

   They passed the fifth landing. On the sixth was a heavy steel door, propped open with a brick, and the air coming through it – it was _outside_ air, night air, and Simon wanted to cheer but he didn’t have the breath. Jace shoved him at the door and he fell through it, landing on his hands and knees on concrete, but the pain of his scraped palms didn’t register through the surge of relief. Jace hurtled through right after him and slammed the door shut with an incredible _clang_.

   “Kent, Wayne, and Diana Themyscira,” Simon gasped, naming DC’s holy trinity with fervent reverence. “We actually made it.”

   “For the moment.” Jace didn’t sound as if he shared Simon’s relief.

   When Simon looked up, he saw why. They were standing on a slate roof, surrounded by neglected brick chimneys and watched bemusedly by an old water tower; a sheet of tarpaulin covered a lumpy pile of wood or other building materials. The sky above them was not, as Simon had expected, black but a deep, rich sapphire, promising reinforcements via the approaching dawn. _At least the vampires won’t be able to get at us_ , he thought. The stars looked like pin-pricks in dark silk, as if beyond the realm of the sky there was another, greater light, peeking through to the mortal world through those tiny holes.

   If angels _did_ exist, did that mean that Heaven did too? _Now is not the time to wonder._

   “They must fly up here,” Jace murmured, more to himself than to Simon. “Not that it does us much good.”

   For the _n_ th time that night, Simon pushed himself to his feet, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder and slicing across his upper back. “What about a fire escape?”

   There wasn’t one. Or rather, there _was_ – but it was a twisted heap of metal on the ground behind the hotel, long ago ripped away from the wall and discarded.

   _For what possible reason?_ Simon snarled silently. _Why bother destroying something that you don’t care about?_

The door was vibrating: the wolves, and perhaps the vampires as well, had reached the top of the stairs. They would break out and onto the roof in another minute or two.

   Jace pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. The desperate air of the gesture made Simon’s stomach twist painfully; he looked away, trying to calm himself by rubbing his thumb over Simiel’s hilt.

   Jace muttered to himself, his voice strained. “Think, Wayland, _think_ – ”

   “I don’t suppose there’s a rune for flight, is there?” Simon asked jokingly. He knew just how it would sound, the song of it – the rich ripple of a piano, hand drums, a female singer, voice raised in a high, perfect, wordless melody – he could see the note it would make in his head. Two downward triangles and a curving bar between them – a pair of wings...

   “No, but...” Jace dropped his hands. “That’s it! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

   “What? Jace?” But Jace was already running to the other side of the roof, and Simon, bemused, couldn’t do anything but rush after him. The blond went straight for the pile of lumber and started pulling at the tarpaulin; without asking for an explanation (there was no _time_ ) Simon shoved Simiel in a pocket, grabbed hold of another corner of tarpaulin, and helped him. It came free in a dark, rippling wave, and Simon blinked in surprise at the revelation of silver and sparkle, smooth leather and jewel-bright colour.

_“Motorcycles?”_

   Without deigning to respond, Jace swung atop the nearest one, a huge Harley painted with a red so garnet-perfect it might have been fresh blood, matching the dark stains on Jace’s clothes. Golden flames licked over the paintjob and fenders. Simon was still staring when Jace looked over his shoulder impatiently. “Get on!”

   “Mom told me never to accept rides from strangers,” Simon said promptly, and Jace grinned, wicked and wild and the archetype of every bad boy every mother had ever warned against. Simon swallowed, his mouth suddenly very dry. “A-and, we don’t have the keys.”

   “I don’t need keys,” Jace said dismissively. “It runs on demon energies.” Like that was supposed to mean anything to Simon. “Now are you going to get on, or do you want to ride your own?”

   And give up the chance to have his arms around Jace’s waist? Not freaking likely. Simon was sliding onto the bike behind Jace almost before he thought to wonder exactly what Jace’s plan was.

   “Closer,” Jace said, and the note in his voice made Simon shiver; a cocky, husky little murmur, almost but not quite a purr. Simon scooted closer obediently, and Jace shoved the point of his stele into the ignition. The bike roared to life in response. Jace’s abdomen was smooth and hard under Simon’s hands, and the muscles flexed once when Simon splayed his fingers over them. With his face so close to Jace’s shoulder, Simon breathed in the scents of blood and leather, sweat and skin, and resisted the urge to bury his face in the blond’s neck: he smelled _good_ , the combination of scents somehow both sexy and safe, reassuring.

   Except... “Jace, what exactly is your plan?”

   If Jace answered, he was drowned out by the sudden crash of the door finally giving way. Giant wolves and hissing vampires burst through the doorway, a volcanic eruption of fur and fang, and Simon swallowed a yelp, clamping his arms more tightly around Jace’s waist as the motorcycle surged forward. The machine rumbled and shrieked, tires skidding over the slate and Jace yelled something but Simon couldn’t hear it, and they were heading straight for the edge of the roof and he’d never even been on a rollercoaster and it was closerclosercloser _oh God oh fuck fuck **fuck**_ _this is insane that’s it this is how I die_ and he sank his teeth into Jace’s shoulder to muffle a scream as they shot out into open space and –

   Hurtled down like a red-and-gold falling star, _dropping_ , ten fucking _floors_ of drop –

   Jace was gasping, taking one hand off the handlebars to reach back, knotting his fingers in Simon’s hair and everything was electric, screaming, weightless, _falling_ –

   And then the bike jerked. The engine sputtered and they pulled out of their dive in a Wronskei Feint, and Jace reclaimed his hand in the same moment that Simon unclenched his teeth from the blond’s shoulder. Jace was laughing, whooping wild cries of relief and exhilarated delight, and Simon grinned despite himself, despite the uncertain, jelly-like sensation in his stomach.

   He glanced back at the vampires and wolves gathered on the Dumort’s rooftop – and then looked away. If he ever saw that place again, it would be too soon.

   Vampires...Vampire motorbikes... “Hey,” he yelled over the wind and the engine, suddenly remembering something. “Alec said only _some_ of these things could fly. And Magnus said none of them could! How did you know he was wrong?”

   Jace steered them around a traffic light in the process of turning from green to red. “I didn’t!” he shouted gleefully, and Simon was just about to throttle him when the bike suddenly shot straight up into the air. Simon yelped and clutched Jace’s belt like a lifeline. “You should look down! It’s awesome!”

   “ _You_ look down! That’s how far you’re going to fall when I shove you off this thing!” 

   But he did look, because how could he not? New York stretched out beneath them like the most incredible map, all neon and shadows, glass and concrete and cars like little enamel beetles scuttling along black tarmac ribbons. Simon couldn’t believe how high up they were, and he felt an echo of Jace’s excitement catch like a spark beneath his skin. The wind kissed his face, cool and caressing after the night’s sticky heat, and for a moment – just a moment – Simon almost wanted to let go. To spread his arms and fall back into the air, feel what angels felt when they fell beneath a star-studded sky.

   But he didn’t. Because that would be incredibly stupid.

   They crossed the East River, a grey-green band of metal dividing the city. At the Queensboro Bridge Jace turned them south; the sky was growing paler and paler, the rich colours slowly being washed out by Dawn’s rosy fingers. The Brooklyn Bridge glittered like a fairytale edifice in the distance, and beyond it, barely a blur of colour, Simon could pretend to make out the Statue of Liberty.

   “Are you all right?” Jace yelled.

   “I’m fine!” Simon shouted back. And to prove it, he whooped, feeling ridiculous and stupid but also wild and free.

   Jace laughed and echoed him, and then they were both doing it, competing to see who could shout the loudest, wordless cries that tore through the morning air and Simon couldn’t stop laughing. He had never felt so alive as he did then, cutting loose and just _screaming_ out at the world, screaming his fierce joy at the river, the sky, the sunrise –

   Suddenly Jace stiffened. “Sunrise,” he breathed, and Simon only heard him because he turned his head to face east and his lips were nearly on Simon’s jaw.

   Simon swallowed hard. “So?” he called, torn between the shocky note in Jace’s voice and the near-touch of his mouth. “Sunrise means no vampires – hey!” He protested as Jace spun them around without warning, wrenching harshly on the handlebars. “What’s wrong?”

   Jace sent them downwards, flying down to the edge of the island. The water gleamed and sparkled, white where the dawning sunlight touched it. “I told you! The bike runs on demon energies!” He pulled up just before they hit the water, and Simon’s heart was pounding. Spray arced up from the bike’s wheels in crystal droplets, and Simon spluttered as a less picturesque splash got him in the face. He eased one arm from around Jace’s waist to wipe at his face with his sleeve as the blond drove them on a level with the water, as if the river were a road. “As soon as the sun comes up – ”

   The engine started to gurgle.

   “You have _got_ to be kidding me!” Simon protested, but no one was. Jace punched the accelerator, swearing, but the short burst of speed was cut off in the choking, gasping sounds of a dying animal. The motorcycle started to buck in its death throes and Simon’s eyes grabbed at the morning star and _wished_ , desperately, because he so badly did not want an early morning dunking. The sun was rising and the pebbled shore was rapidly approaching, and Simon held his breath, not taking his eyes off his wishing star – _just a little more, please, c’mon, just a few seconds more_ –

   His sigh of relief whooshed out of him as they cleared the bank. But too soon: they overshot and suddenly they were above the highway, instead of the relatively deserted wharves, and they were flying lower and lower no matter how Jace twisted his stele or kicked – whatever it was that made a motorbike go. Simon jerked up his feet as the wheels bounced off the roof of a truck, and then they were clear, clear and going down in the near-empty parking lot of some supermarket chain. “Hang on to me!” Jace yelled, the bike jerking and snorting just like a horse. “Hang on to me, Simon, and _do not let_ – ”

   They hit the asphalt front wheel first. The next few seconds were a terrifying blur of screeching metal as they slid into a skid, almost horizontal against the ground. Sparks flew and Simon nearly screamed as his leg was dragged against the uneven asphalt, the ground shredding his jeans like paper. He channelled the pain into holding tight to Jace, and one of Jace’s hands reached down and clutched his wrist, grasping Simon just as tightly as the smell of burned rubber surrounded them like mustard gas.

   It felt like the eye of the storm, that hand holding his.

   At last the bike came to a stop. For a moment neither boy moved – Simon didn’t feel as though he _could_ move. His left leg, the one caught under the bike and torn along the ground, was a flaming limb of agony, and he was numbly terrified that it might have been reduced to mincemeat. The wounds on his shoulder and back felt like chasms carved through flesh and bone.

   He thought that if he moved, he might shatter into a million pieces.

   It was Jace who, somehow, managed to heave the bike up and off of them, a display of Shadowhunter strength Simon could hardly notice at the time. Especially since shoving the bike away dumped both Jace and Simon onto the ground proper—and put Simon’s full weight on his injured leg.

   This time, he couldn’t help the strangled cry of pain that tore out of his throat.

   “Simon!”

   A glint of crystal. Jace’s stele. Simon peered through his glasses – miraculously in one piece, but they were dirty with grit and splashes of the East River. Jace looked as bad as Simon felt; his face was a mess of bloodied grazes, and one sleeve of his jacket was in tatters, shredded like Simon’s jeans. The Shadowhunter was paper-pale beneath the blood and dirt, his eyes frenzied. “Just lie still, I’ll heal you – just stay still – ”

   Shaking, Simon shook his head. “Clary,” he gasped. He was lying on his side – his rucksack – was it – was Clary –

   “Listen to the demon hunter, Simon,” Clary said, and Simon would have shot upright if she hadn’t firmly pinned his shoulder to the ground.

_“Clary!”_

   She was rumpled and dirty, but there was no blood on her: she rolled her eyes under his inspection and waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, I’m fine, now let’s get _you_ fixed up, okay?” Beneath her blasé assurances, her voice shook a little: Simon didn’t call her on it. “Jace, if you would?”

   Simon reached for her hand. She squeezed his fingers hard enough to grind the bones together, but he didn’t care. “Clary,” he said hoarsely. “I thought – I thought you – ”

   Her brittle smile softened. “I’m fine,” she said gently. “I promise. But you need one of those magical tattoo thingies.” She made her voice light. “You’re kind of a mess, Simon.”

   “They’re not magic,” Jace muttered darkly under his breath at the same time that Simon said, “Really? I hadn’t noticed. Thank you for pointing that out to me, Lewis.”

   Clary grinned, and even Jace’s lips twitched as he bent over Simon’s leg with his stele.

   Nobody mentioned the death-grip Simon kept on Jace’s free hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enma is a deity from Naruto. The rest of the references I think everyone should be able to get!
> 
> THE KISS IS FAST APPROACHING, PEOPLE! I HOPE YOU'RE READY FOR THIS!
> 
> Finally, thank you to all the WONDERFUL people who commented on the last (and all the previous!) chapters. I hope all of you, commenters and lurkers, enjoy this one as much as I did writing it!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to upload this on Tuesday, but I’m actually going to be very busy the next few days – I’m travelling Monday and then on Tuesday and Wednesday I have entrance exams for uni. Wish me luck!
> 
> And now, the one you’ve all been waiting for – dun dun DUUUUUN!

   It was a long, miserable trip back to the Institute. Their bloodied, dirty clothes drew stares from all corners, and worse, it seemed there were limits to what an _iratze_ could accomplish: despite all Jace’s efforts, Simon could only limp, barely able to put any weight on his leg at all.

   It was unpleasant in the extreme. So unpleasant, that Simon’s body finally gave up the battle somewhere on the Subway: as Clary called her mom he fell asleep as suddenly and sharply as falling into a well, one that was dark and warm and smelled comfortingly of leather. He was out like a light.

   He woke up four stops before theirs with his head on Jace’s shoulder and no memory of putting it there. Jace was sitting very still, and Simon breathed in and out slowly and deeply without opening his eyes.

   He pretended to be asleep until Clary shook his shoulder at their stop and threatened to leave him if he didn’t get up.

   Hodge, Isabelle and Alec were all waiting for them when they came stumbling in, Simon leaning heavily on Clary and Jace carrying Simon’s backpack.

   (Jace had protested this arrangement, no doubt feeling it reflected badly on his masculinity, but Clary had firmly pointed out that she was the only one without any injuries, and in the state he was in she could beat him around the head until he gave in, if he liked. He did not like, and so had sensibly, if grudgingly, deferred to her. “Smart man,” Simon had told him.)

   They were barely through the door before Hodge launched into a searing lecture that would have done Jocelyn proud, although since he was focussing most of his energy into remaining upright Simon missed most of it. The general gist was something like ‘WILL NEVER TRUST YOU AGAIN’ and ‘YOU HAVE BROUGHT SHAME UPON YOUR HOUSE’ ‘BROKE THE LAW’ ‘THROWN OUT OF THE CLAVE’...

   _Jesus Christ on a T-Rex, shut up already,_ Simon thought. Only when everyone stared at him – Isabelle hiding a snigger behind her hand, Alec appalled, Clary grinning and Jace’s mouth twitching – did Simon realise that he’d spoken aloud.

   “Ah. Yes.” Hodge cleared his throat. “I suppose the rest can wait until your injuries have been seen to.” He glared at Jace. “But do _not_ think this is the end of the matter, Jace Wayland. You’ve endangered other people with your wilfulness. This is one incident I will not allow you to shrug off!”

   “I wasn’t planning to,” Jace said, with a perfectly straight face. “I can’t shrug anything off. My shoulder’s dislocated.”

   Clary snorted into hysterical giggles, doubling over and clutching her stomach. “Dislocated,” she gasped, her shoulders shaking, and went into full meltdown. Hodge looked alarmed, but Simon just patted her on the head.

   “Don’t worry, she gets like this,” he assured them as Clary laughed and laughed. “You just have to wait it out. Sometimes she ends up on the floor like this crazy giggle monster and you just have to step over her to get to things.” He kept patting her. “There there,” he cooed. “It wasn’t that funny, Clary. You don’t have to laugh yourself to death.”

   “Could she actually do that?” Alec asked, wide-eyed, and Jace snorted.

   “He’s joking, you idiot.”

   Hurt flashed across Alec’s face, and Simon thought, _his shoulder was dislocated but he let me sleep on it anyway._

   Hodge shook his head with perhaps only half-faked despair and jabbed his finger towards the stairs. “The Infirmary. All of you!”

*

   There were, apparently, more healing runes than just _iratze_. Stronger ones.

   Simon soon learned the reason _iratze_ was preferred as wave after wave of excruciating pain tore through his body. It wasn’t the rune itself which hurt, but where _iratze_ healed in a rush of warmth, these others made him hyper aware of every capillary being drawn back into its proper place, every skin cell being regrown, every tiny fracture in his leg being forced closed. He bit down on the leather strap they gave him and shrieked around it as his body was shoved back into its natural alignment in the most unnatural of ways.

   And this was _after_ picking out all the gravel out of his leg, _and_ the _iratzes_ Jace had used in the parking lot.

   When it was over, his skin had smoothed over the wounds like clay, but the muscles ached and Hodge warned him not to put any weight on them for a few more hours. Simon was happy to comply. He drank the potion Hodge gave him, dropped his glasses on the bedside table and closed his eyes, breathing hard and trying to make his stomach stop heaving.

   He didn’t drop off to sleep again, though. Couldn’t – despite the soporific effect of Hodge’s tonic Simon’s head felt too full, thoughts snapping back and forth like leaves in a storm. He listened instead, absently, as Jace quietly recounted the night’s events to Hodge while Alec drew healing runes on him.

   Jace skipped deftly around the white light Simiel had created; instead, he told them that the werewolves had arrived before the vampires could attack in the first place. It was the only edit he made in the story, and Simon drowsily wondered about it. Alec already knew that Jace had given him a seraph blade...But maybe Hodge didn’t? _So? Why not tell him?_

_Urgh, my head hurts..._

   “Simon?” Jace asked softly. Simon felt the mattress shift, and opened his eyes a touch to see Jace sitting down on his, Simon’s, bed. Clearly Jace was more fully healed than Simon was. “How are you feeling?”

   “Mmf.”

   Jace nodded as if this made perfect sense. But then, perhaps Simon had instinctively tapped into the language of the wounded, which Jace, as a demon hunter, no doubt spoke fluently. “I’m drugged,” Simon realised, because that was too weird a thought even for him.

   Jace grinned. “Don’t worry. I won’t take advantage of you.”

   Simon sighed dramatically and closed his eyes again. “Flirt.” He manfully snuggled into the blankets. “Tell me a story,” he ordered.

   “A what?” Jace sounded startled.

   “You know.” Simon peeked one eye open. “A story. So I can sleep.”

   “Why – you know what, don’t answer that.” Jace was silent a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was like glass; completely clear, with nothing in it. “All right. Once there was a boy.”

   “Good start,” Simon murmured. “A Shadowhunter boy?”

   “Of course.”

   “Just as long as there’s no ferrets,” Simon said darkly.

   He could hear Jace’s grin. “No ferrets,” he promised. “Now be quiet and let me tell the story.

   “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors – killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.”

   Simon’s mind was instantly full of demonic robins, prey for falcon Shadowhunters.

   “The falcon didn’t like the boy,” Jace continued, his voice gone empty again, “and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at his wrists and his hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.”

   Simon wasn’t sure why. The guy sounded like a grade-A bastard.

   “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to the wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it – instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen.”

   “This is a creepy story,” Simon murmured.

   He felt a touch – light as a feather and quick as a kiss – brush his forehead, but he didn’t open his eyes to look.

   “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful,” Jace said quietly. “That its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.

   “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s corpse to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: they are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’

   “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the bird’s body away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”

   “That’s a _horrible_ story!” Simon declared, scandalised. “This is like Tales of Beedle the Shadowhunter, isn’t it? Nephilim bedtime stories. Holy Batman. And that moral! That’s such – such – ” He struggled for suitably deriding noun. “It’s _stultiloquence!_ ”

   Jace’s eyebrows rose, an amused twist to his mouth. “Did you just make that up?”

   “Stultiloquence,” Simon told him archly, “means _nonsense._ Balderdash. _Tripe._ Crap, bullshit, LIES AND SLANDER.” He jabbed his finger at Jace. “Which is what that story is. Love is _awesome_. It _rocks_. It is the _coolest of the emotions_. Love is never bad. Ever ever.” He paused for a second, thinking about it. “Sometimes we do bad things because of love,” he admitted, thinking of love’s darker side, stalking and marital abuse and paedophilia. “But that’s _people_ fucking up. Love itself is never bad.” He blinked and glared at Jace. “And also, that dad is a _douche_. I recommend covering him in jam and sticking him in bear country.”

   That shocked laughter back into Jace’s empty eyes. “Seraphs and Fallen, you are _insane_.”

   “I’m _awesome_ ,” Simon corrected him. “I am the awesomest. I am _King of the Win._ ”

   Jace laughed again. “Go to sleep, your Majesty,” he grinned, getting up from the bed. “You can tell me all about being King later.”

   “You can be Queen if you want,” Simon mumbled, but he was already slipping under and he wasn’t sure whether or not Jace heard him.

   Just as he drifted off, he remembered. _He gave me everything I wanted. Horses, weapons, books, even a hunting falcon..._

   “Oh dear,” Simon murmured sleepily, frowning with distress, and then he was gone.

*

   “Wake up, mundane!”

   Simon woke with a start, and even blurred and softened without his glasses, Isabelle’s anger was a terrifying thing to behold. “I’m awake, I’m awake! What’d I do?”

   “That,” Isabelle said grimly, “is precisely what I intend to discover.” She took a seat on a nearby chair as if alighting on a throne. Simon scrambled for his glasses and blinked as the world came into focus.

   “Um?” he said intelligently.

   She pointed a beautifully manicured fingernail at him. “Tell me what happened when you found the vampires.”

   Simon opened his mouth to do just that – and then remembered Jace spinning Hodge and Alec a line. “You know what, I don’t remember,” he said airily. “I must have hit my head.”

   She skewered him with her gaze, and he quailed. “Or, um, maybe I didn’t?” he said meekly.

   “I didn’t think so.” Pushing her hair behind her ear, Isabelle leaned back in her chair and gestured for him to begin.

   “You’re scarier than a Ravener, you know that?” he drawled. As an attempt at flippancy, it failed utterly when her subsequent smirk made him shiver. “Um. Yeah. The hotel. Okay. But do _not_ tell Hodge about this.”

   She nodded impatiently, and haltingly Simon told the story. About how Raphael had tried to trick them, and the ambush, and the vampires deciding to sacrifice Raphael for the chance of killing two Shadowhunters. _That_ made her eyes gleam dangerously, but it was when he described how Simiel had lit up the room and burned the vampires that she hissed through her teeth with undisguised shock.

   “What? _What?”_

   “I don’t believe this,” she muttered. She rose to her feet and paced alongside his bed, her long dark hair swishing like a silk curtain with each step. “Are you absolutely _sure_ it was the light that hurt them?”

   “Yes, I’m sure!” Simon struggled to sit upright. “Why? What does it mean?”

   “It means – ” She bit her lip, uncharacteristically uncertain. “Normal seraph blades don’t do that, Simon.”

   “Don’t do _what?”_ he demanded, exasperated. “Is this because it’s a, what-do-you-call-it, armas-thing?”

   “No. Yes. Well, yes, but not necessarily. Not all _armask_ _ō_ blades – only – ” She cut herself off. Then, to herself, she murmured helplessly, “He – he really – ”

   “ ‘He really’ – which he? Jace? Isabelle, _tell me!”_

   She whirled on her heel and jabbed her finger at him. There was a lot of that going around today, Simon thought inanely. “Oh, no. _Oh no_. This one you two can sort out yourselves. I am _not_ playing matchmaker for you two idiots!” She threw her hands up, and before Simon could say another word she swept out of the room, an Amazonian goddess blazing with frenetic energy.

   He really would not want to be the next person to cross her path.

*

_“Carry on my wayward sooooooooooon,/There’ll be peace when you are done –”_

   Simon shot upright, flailed, yelled “Not the demon blood!”, and fell out of the bed in a tangle of sheets, pillow, and glasses.

   Switching his ringtone to Supernatural’s themesong had been a lot funnier before demons became a real thing, he decided.

   “Winchester and Sons, how may I help you today?” he gasped into his phone when he finally found it – at the bottom of his bag, shoved under his bed.

   “It’s funnier in Enochian,” Clary answered without missing a beat, and he grinned despite the new bruising on his funny bone.

   “I think it loses something in translation,” he agreed. “What’s up? And why are you calling me, aren’t you downstairs somewhere?”

   “Simon, it’s eleven o’ clock at night. I went home.”

   His eyes widened. He searched fruitlessly for a clock, then remembered it was the 21st century and glanced at his phone. “You woke me up. I can’t believe I slept so long!”

   “I spent most of the day asleep too,” she confessed. “I was just calling to make sure you’re all right.”

   “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Simon rolled onto his back on the floor, deciding not to bother getting back up into the bed. The blanket was beneath him, anyway, disguising the hardness of the floor.

   He could almost hear her shrug. “I’m okay. I wasn’t hurt, not like you two.”

   Simon remembered the scream of agony tearing through his leg. “It looked worse than it was,” he lied.

   “Uh huh.” He could tell she didn’t believe a word of it. Smart woman. “I just – I wanted to say thank you.” Her voice grew small and quiet. “For coming to get me.”

   Simon blinked. “Clary, there is no world in any of the multiverses where I wouldn’t come when you needed me.”

   “Same here.” She took a deep breath. “But – still. It’s an easy thing to promise, but you actually did it. Thank you.”

   “You’re welcome,” he said quietly.

   A moment of heavy, but comfortable silence. Unpressurised. “Good night, Simon.”

   “Night, Clary. Hey, record _Supernatural_ for me, will you?”

   She snorted. “Why, you need tips now?”

   “You never know what might come in useful,” he said sagely.

   She laughed. “I will. Night.”

   “Night.”

   When she hung up, he snapped his phone shut and pressed it to his lips, thinking. After a minute he pushed himself up off the floor. He was cautious, but his leg felt perfectly normal, and as if that wasn’t awesome enough, when he tipped his bag out onto the bed, there was nothing broken in there either.

   “Okay, now _that_ is a miracle,” he grinned. He hugged his iPad, and the books inside it, to his chest like a teddy bear before going through his clothes for something clean. In the process, he caught a whiff of himself. “Urgh, okay, shower first. Definitely shower first.”

   He pitied whoever was going to wash his sheets.

   When he returned, freshly scrubbed and towelling his hair dry, he found Church sitting on the bed amongst his stuff.

   “Hey, Church. What’s up?” He blinked as the cat tapped its paw against a square of white paper. “Is this for me?”

   Church nodded regally. Feeling extremely strange about receiving a cat as a courier, Simon picked up the note.

   _Meet me in the music room. Bring Simiel._

_~J_

   “He hasn’t set a time,” Simon commented, his mouth gone dry. He glanced at the cat. “Are you here to make sure I don’t get lost?”

   Church flicked his tail.

   “I’m going to take that as a _yes,_ so thank you.” Simon looked back at the note and swallowed. “Right. Well. Since there’s no time set, I guess that means I should go now?”

   Again, a flick of the tail.

   “You are making me more nervous instead of less, you know,” Simon accused. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. But first I’m going to change my shirt. Don’t give me that look, I know he’s taken. I just want to look my best.”

   He did not put on the green t-shirt with the picture of a NES cartridge on it, because the text instructed the reader to _Blow Me_ and that did not feel appropriate. Instead he pulled on a white shirt with _Smaug’s Cash 4 Gold_ printed below a lovely curled-up Smaug, looking happily smug with his pile of treasure.

   _We pay cold hard cash for gold, silver, mithril and more!_

   “See?” he told Church. “Perfectly innocent.” _So why is my stomach in knots?_ His fingertips brushed his pocket, and the small bulge of Simiel’s hilt. “Lead on, my feline friend.”

   Soundlessly, Church got up, stretched, and gracefully leapt off the bed and onto the floor. He led the way out of the Infirmary, and after a moment Simon padded after him, barefoot. The corridor was silent, hushed as if in expectation, and Simon tried uselessly to distract himself, to think anything but _this is it._ Because it _wasn’t_ ‘it’, he reminded himself ruthlessly. There was no ‘it’; Jace was with Alec, and that was the final say on the matter. The _only_ say that mattered.

   _This is not an assignation. This is – this is –_

   Simon stopped walking and slipped his fingers under his glasses and against his eyes.

   _If it is – if he tries to kiss you – are you going to stop him?_

   Simon tried to imagine it. He didn’t have to try very hard: his mind flashed back to that moment in the training room, Jace’s body a warm weight on top of him and the Shadowhunter’s eyes molten gold, his breath on Simon’s lips.

   Imagining it – imagining if Jace’s mouth had descended just a little bit more –

   _No_ , he thought, the realisation carried on a searing blade of heat. _No. If he tries to kiss me, I’m not going to stop him._

   Which meant he should turn around right now, because that was wrong, it was horribly wrong of him, he was not, and was not going to be a, a bloody _homewrecker_ –

   Church meowed and batted at the door to Simon’s left. It swung open a little, smoothly, and Simon’s heart simultaneously sank and leapt as Jace’s voice called, “Is that you, Simon?”

   “That was Church, actually,” Simon answered. Helplessly, hating himself, he moved forward and pushed the door open wider. “He was just making sure I got here instead of Narnia.”

   He paused in the doorway, and Jace looked up at him. The blond was sitting at the piano, and he didn’t smile but something taut and tense went out of his body. “Where?”

   _You’re in the closet, you should know all about it._ Simon swallowed the quip. “Narnia. It’s a magical land in a clos – wardrobe.”

   Jace raised his eyebrows, lips twitching. “Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t end up there, then. Thank you, Church.”

   The cat huffed once – in annoyance? Acknowledgement? Simon couldn’t tell – and sauntered away.

   Jace looked back down at the keys beneath his fingers. “Are you coming in?”

   “That depends. Are you going to tell me why you had a cat summon me here?” Belying his words, Simon stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. The lock clicked with finality.

   “I wanted to show you something.” Which didn’t really answer the question. But before Simon could point that out, Jace glanced up at him, and his eyes – they were two golden hooks, slipping deftly between Simon’s ribs and catching on his breastbone.

   Simon forgot how to breathe.

   “Come sit down?” Jace asked softly, his gaze intent _(intense)_ , and Simon found himself crossing the room without thinking about it. Jace made room for him on the piano stool. Their thighs and shoulders brushed, and Simon was hyperaware of the contact.

   Without a word, Jace began to play.

   The piece began slowly, but Simon recognised it nonetheless, and closed his eyes at the dart of silver-sweet pain the recognition sent through him.

   _Jace..._

   The Shadowhunter spun sound into silver beneath his fingers, weaving magic to rival Jocelyn’s skill. Delicate, shining notes like drops of moonlight in still water made Simon’s eyes burn, pulled silken ribbons tight around his throat. It was almost unbearably lovely, tempered by deeper, richer notes that kept it from growing painfully sweet: the melody danced slowly, in spiralling eddies and joyful soaring stretches. There was sunlight in it, sunlight filtered through summer leaves; something hopeful and something beyond hope, something that said that even if hope was betrayed by circumstance, there was still immeasurable beauty in the world. It tried to share that beauty; it was a piece about sharing, about the musician showing the listener what they saw because the listener was there, like a light in the shadows, revealing hidden gemstones the musician couldn’t see before. Rubies and garnets, and golden lacework that embedded itself on Simon’s skin, warming him from the core outwards. The unfamiliar rune-note in Simiel echoed behind every bar.

   It was a piece by a South Korean artist named Yiruma. Jocelyn had every one of his CDs, and Simon knew this one by heart.

   It was called _Because I Love You._

   Three and a half minutes. The music only took three and a half minutes to play, but it felt endless, as if Jace had taken them outside of time. As if the notes had grown up around the two boys like Sleeping Beauty’s briars, locking out everyone and everything else in the world.

   The briars in the story had been undone with a kiss. When Jace’s hands finally stilled – when the melody drifted softly and gently away – Simon didn’t know whether to hope Jace knew the ending to the fairytale, or hope that he didn’t.

   If Jace did know the story, he made no move to recreate it. The two of them sat in silence until it grew unbearable.

   Simon cracked first. “I have to go,” he forced out, standing up from the stool and making for the door.

   “What?” Without looking, he could hear the confusion in Jace’s voice. “Why?”

   “Because _I know that song_ ,” Simon snapped, whirling on Jace. “I know what it’s called. Christ, what are you _doing_ , Jace?”

   Jace’s expression snapped shut. “I apologise,” he said formally. “I thought my feelings were mutual. Clearly I was mistaken.”

   “Your – ” Simon’s heart stuttered. For a second he couldn’t believe what he’d heard – and not because he was outraged, the way he should have been.

   With effort, he came back to himself. “It doesn’t fucking matter whether or not they’re mutual!” he almost snarled. _“What about Alec?”_

   Jace blinked, bemusement breaking through his mask. “What about him?”

   “Are you seriously telling me that your boyfriend doesn’t care about _this?”_ Simon wrenched Simiel out of his pocket. “I know damn well what this is, Jace! You should have seen Alec’s face when he saw it – it was like somebody stabbed him in the heart. And now you’re, what, _seducing_ me? How could you do that to him?”

   _How could you do that to_ me _?_

   Jace blinked again. Slowly, like a cat. Angry tears stung Simon’s eyes like needles; he ignored them, his knuckles white around Simiel’s hilt. Fuck it – fuck everything, this – he should just go, go before this went any further, before they cut each other too deeply to heal –

   “Alec is not my boyfriend.”

   Simon stared at him. “What?” he whispered.

   Slowly, with exquisite care, Jace stood up from the stool. His eyes locked with Simon’s as he repeated, clearly and deliberately, “Alec is not, and never has been, and never will be my boyfriend.”

   “He’s not – but – ” Simon licked his lips. “What?”

   “Where do you get these ideas?” Jace mused. His long legs ate up the space between them. “Alec and I are not lovers. He’s my best friend. Simiel upset him because he thinks I’m making a mistake, choosing you.” He stopped inches from Simon, and Simon’s breath caught in his throat, a husky rasp as Jace’s voice lowered and his eyes turned _searing_.

   “He doesn’t realise,” Jace murmured, touching his fingertips along Simon’s jaw, trailing fire, “that falling for you wasn’t a choice.”

   A fallen angel, blazing and golden and Simon was nearly vibrating with the urge to touch. The memory of Jace’s hard abdomen under his hand flashed through him, lightning bright. “But he’s your _parabatai_ ,” Simon managed. Somehow. “I thought that meant...”

   “It means warriors who fight together. It means we’re _brothers_.” Jace’s thumb brushed over Simon’s lower lip, and it took everything he had not to suck it into his mouth, to only hiss out a startled breath at the crashing wave of _want_. “I could never want him like I want you.”

   “Oh, thank you Jesus,” Simon breathed – and fisted a hand in Jace’s shirt and yanked and _there_ , finally, Jace’s mouth on his.

   Fire, meet gunpowder.

   The moment their lips touched, the dam blew. Jace surged forward and Simon dropped Simiel and his back hit the door, all in one blazingly bright instant; fire, fire and thunder and the rush of blood pounding in his ears and finally, finally, _finally._ Lips and tongue and teeth, Simon’s hands buried in Jace’s hair and Jace’s everywhere, running hungrily over every inch of Simon they could reach, branding him. And that was not to be borne, the claim could not go one way; Simon _raked_ his nails over Jace’s back and revelled in the blond’s startled gasp, drank it down and felt grenades go off beneath his skin when Jace’s calluses slid under his shirt, catching and dragging over his stomach and sides and so _unbelievably fucking good_ , converting his blood to magma. The length of Jace’s body, pressed smooth and perfect against his, chest to chest and hip to hip and the unmistakable, incontestable bulge between Jace’s thighs, the match of his own – Simon slid his leg between Jace’s and laughed against his lips as Jace groaned, low and sweet like melted chocolate; Simon licked it out of his mouth until Jace broke away, until his lips found Simon’s jaw and Simon’s hips bucked, gasping, tangling his fingers in Jace’s hair and urging him on. His jaw, his neck, his throat, warm and wet and the scrape of Jace’s teeth over his pulse, both of them panting and Jace’s hair like silk –

   Simon couldn’t take it anymore: he slid his palms down over Jace’s neck, shoulders, to the middle of his chest – and _shoved_.

   Jace stumbled, shocked, dazed, hungry, and Simon smirked. “Back,” he purred, stepping forward until he had his hand flat on Jace’s chest, and the blond’s confusion was swept aside by naked desire, his eyes darkening to bronze at the command. He stepped back as Simon moved forward, back and back until he hit the piano stool and Simon pushed him down onto it, thrilling at the way that Jace just _went_ and then Simon was on him, straddling him, hands back in Jace’s hair as Jace hauled him closer and both of them moaning into the kiss as gravity pulled them together. Simon rocked, hot and urgent, panting against Jace’s mouth and Jace grabbed his ass and helped him move, helped to grind them together, all molten gold and sunspots. Jace slipped his other hand under Simon’s shirt and carved ley lines into him, mapping him with light, everywhere, and the pressure, the heat, wave after wave of the most incredible _intensity_ and he couldn’t get enough. He wanted even more.

   He broke the kiss and pulled Jace’s head back by his hair, a quick sharp tug. Jace was breathing hard and the sound, the puffs of air against Simon’s skin made him shiver as he put his lips to Jace’s ear.

   “I want to jerk you off,” he breathed, and smirked as Jace’s hips stuttered, the rhythm shot to holy Hell by the sudden bolt of lust. “Can I, Jace?” He rolled his hips, slow and deliberate and Jace groaned, a wrecked, desperate sound. “Pretty please?”

   “Well, since you asked so nicely,” Jace drawled, his voice rough and low. It slid down Simon’s spine like heated satin.

   Simon laughed and kissed him, deep and hungry, sparks glittering inside his fingers. “Thank you,” he purred, sing-song, pushing those fingers down between their bodies. He felt a dark burst of satisfaction at Jace’s blown pupils, watching him hungrily as Simon shifted a little, making room for his hands. Excitement beat steel wings in his chest, heavy and sharp, and then Jace’s jeans were open and Jace was hissing through his teeth as Simon’s hand slid in and around his cock.

   With a hot coal in the pit of his stomach, Simon drew it out, stroking his fingertips over it from base to tip, marvelling at the silky texture and feeling his eyes go half-lidded at the sight of it. “Very, very nice,” he murmured. And it _was_ – like every other bit of Jace it was perfect: six inches long with change, at a glance, and when he wrapped his fingers around it it was beautifully thick against his palm. It twitched, and he glanced up at Jace’s face – into a look that was all fire, dark and hungry and predatory.

   Simon smirked.

   He leaned forward and Jace met him, a clashing, fervent kiss. Their teeth clicked and Simon didn’t care, just drank in the edge of savage need in Jace’s lips and tongue and started to stroke. Really, they needed some kind of slick, but Jace didn’t seem to be complaining; the low, hungry sounds coming from his throat made Simon shudder, made him bite at Jace’s lip. The blond jerked and growled and Simon grinned, thrilled, moving his wrist, sliding his thumb over Jace’s leaking slit and Jace’s hand fisted in his hair, pulled him out of the kiss.

   Simon moaned, arching as Jace’s grip pulled him into a bow and he was panting, shuddering, swallowing hard as Jace’s other hand slid down Simon’s body. “I want to touch you too,” he husked and yes, wow, Simon was so _totally_ on board with this plan, yep.

   “Go ahead,” he gasped, and Jace’s low, velvety laughter made him bite his lip and swallow a whimper. Jace’s fingers were quick and deft on Simon’s jeans; in a moment he had them open, and he paused for just a heartbeat before –

   Before his hand was in Simon’s jeans –

   “ _Fuck_ yes,” Simon hissed, pushing his hips up encouragingly, breathless and stunned. Jace’s calluses – holy Diana, calluses were underappreciated: the hard roughness stroking testingly over his cock evaporated all higher brain functions. “Jesus – ”

   Jace chuckled, lips at Simon’s ear. “Not Jesus,” he purred smugly. “ _Jace_.” His teeth closed on Simon’s earlobe, a sweet sting that shocked through Simon right down to his toes.

   Without discussing it they pressed their foreheads together, exchanging breath as they stroked each other. Jace’s touch felt uncertain, not hesitant but inexperienced – but not for long. Simon reached down and folded his fingers over Jace’s, shuddering out a sigh, showing him, _like this, and this, and this_ , demonstrating the lessons even as he taught them. And Jace – ridiculous, perfect Jace – only needed to be shown once how to twist his wrist, how to rub the head of Simon’s cock just right and smear the pre-come down to slick each stroke.

   Jace brought his other hand to Simon’s cheek, and when he moved Simon’s face Simon went with it. Jace took his mouth in slow, deep kisses and the firework fizz of lust melted into something deeper, and longer-lasting. It simmered, slow and certain as magma flowing beneath the earth, and just as powerful, rich and golden and each panting brush of Jace’s lips on his made Simon shiver. He could feel the eruption building, feel Jace throb against his fingers, moving and thrusting and stroking and kissing and Jace murmured Simon’s name, over and over, low, purring invocations that sent him spiralling up into paradise instead of dragging him down to Earth. He muffled his gasps against Jace’s throat, struggling to ride the crashing waves of pleasure without drowning, rocking and rocking his hips in instinctive urgency and “Beautiful,” Jace husked, smoke and sparks and rich red velvet as he wrung Simon dry and ground his bones to gold dust. “Gorgeous, I _dreamed_ of this – ”

   And that – Simon had no idea what to do with that. He kissed the words back into Jace’s mouth and they tasted of wine and blood and here, now, Jace’s turn. Jace jerked as Simon lavished attention on him, working his cock and forcing Jace to arch his neck back so Simon could hold him pinned by his hair, hold Jace immobile while Simon licked into his mouth, wet and deliciously filthy. It stoked the molten gold in Jace’s eyes, gold which was so dark it was bronze and brass and Simon wanted to see it, wanted to see Jace come apart between his fingers, come apart _for him_ , Simon.

   “Come on, Jace,” he breathed, nuzzling him, stroking him quick and dirty with a messy little twist just below the head. “Show me, show me what you look like when you shatter – let me see you – ”

   Jace hissed, once and sharp, and – and Simon stared, memorising every flicker of the blond’s expression, every minute detail as Jace’s eyes fluttered closed and he crested. The wet, sticky rush over Simon’s fingers was almost incidental to the parting of Jace’s lips, the way he arched and clutched at Simon’s hips, his nails biting through Simon’s shirt and into his skin. Pulse after pulse of shuddering bliss, and Simon brought him through it, triumph and delight coiling like DNA strands inside him, like wires of silver and gold.

   When it was over they were both breathing hard, their brows once again pressed together. Simon smelled sweat and ejaculate and Jace’s skin, and he dropped soft butterfly kisses over Jace’s cheeks and nose and chin and mouth.

   As he brushed one of the feather-light kisses onto Jace’s lips, the blond’s eyes opened, lazy and sated and looking eminently pleased with himself. He kissed back, and Simon’s pulse stuttered at the gentleness in it.

   They both jumped as Jace’s elbow sent a _clang!_ of indignant notes up from the keyboard – and they both burst out laughing.

   “That was my first time having sex on a musical instrument,” Simon grinned, when he could speak again.

   Jace matched it. “With me,” he promised, a note of smugness staining his voice as he drew Simon down, “there’s a first time every day.”

   Simon swallowed. “I could get used to that,” he said breathlessly, and gave himself up to Jace’s kiss.

*

   Eventually they managed to disentangle themselves. Simon’s blood was champagne, sparkling and full of bubbles; he knew he was grinning like an idiot, and he didn’t care. Jace – Jace was pure gold, and Simon’s body was still humming with pleased disbelief, a plucked harp-string of bliss still vibrating and echoing beneath his skin.

   It was hard to stop kissing. Even for the time it took to strip their shirts off and use them to clean up the mess. Because of course that meant that Jace was now _shirtless_ , and his Adonis-chest was wrapped around with calligraphic runes – some etched into his skin like Chinese ink, and others faded, silvery scars that glinted like white marble when they caught the light just right.

   “You know, you’re kind of unfairly good-looking,” Simon mused, trailing his fingertips over the toned planes of Jace’s stomach. “I mean, seriously. It’s like looking at a Greek god.”

   Jace smirked. “That is a wise attitude, and I commend you for it,” he said regally, and ducked, laughing, when Simon threw one of the shirts at him.

   “Arrogant prick,” Simon said fondly. Then, as Jace got up: “Hang on, where are you going?”

   Jace drew a small carrier bag – the kind made of fabric that stores sold as ‘for life’ shopping bags – out from behind the piano. “I realised today that you never had a Bonding party,” he explained, bringing the bag back to where Simon was lying on the floor, having disdained the numerous chairs meant for a musician’s audience. “My original plan was to woo you with _inari_ and _dorayaki_.”

   “With what?” Simon sat up, intrigued, as Jace produced a picnic blanket from the bag and snapped it out like a magician’s trick. He unpacked two plastic lunchboxes as Simon rolled his way onto the blanket.

   “You’re such a child.” But Jace was smiling as he said it. _“Inari_ and _dorayaki_. They’re both Japanese. Come and try some.”

   Simon folded his arms behind his head instead, grinning cheekily. “I think you should feed me instead,” he declared, feeling daring.

   Jace rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth were turned up as he deftly plucked an oblong, dark gold roll out of one of the boxes with a pair of black chopsticks. _“Spoilt_ child.”

   “My party,” Simon reminded him. “Which reminds me: why do I get a party? Not that I’m complaining.” He opened his mouth for the treat.

   Jace delicately fed Simon the roll. Which wasn’t a roll at all, Simon realised: it was sticky rice, stuffed in a pouch of something that was sweet in a way Simon had never experienced before. A cool kind of sweetness, entirely without sugar or additives, and yet not sweet the way raw carrots or peppers were. “When you killed the Forsaken, you bonded with Simiel,” Jace explained. “If you’d been raised a Shadowhunter, your family would have thrown you a party to celebrate. How do you like the _inari_?”

   Simon chewed and swallowed. “It’s delicious. I’ve never had anything like it – is there more?”

   They alternated. Jace showed Simon how to use chopsticks and didn’t laugh – much – when the piece of _inari_ he fumbled dropped and exploded in a burst of rice. The _dorayaki_ were much easier – they were little pancakes, with custard and red bean stuffing, and Simon couldn’t get enough of them. When he triumphantly stole the last one and shoved it in his mouth, Jace kissed him. “At least this way I can taste it.”

   It was so _easy_. The heat-haze of tension that had shimmered between them was gone, sated and satisfied, and in its wake there was only a touch of awe, a delighted disbelief that had them both sneaking glances and little touches, as if at any moment the other boy might vanish into thin air. Simon felt more relaxed than he had – since all this started, in fact. Maybe even longer. Maybe more relaxed than he had _ever_ felt.

   He’d dropped Simiel when he and Jace had kissed, but he’d collected it after and now Simon pulled it out and toyed with it, trying to flip the gleaming crystal hilt through his fingers the way he’d seen people do with coins. However, epic knife throw into a werewolf notwithstanding, Simon didn’t really have the right skill set for something like that, and he kept nearly dropping the seraph blade.

   “Simon.”

   Simon looked up, and stopped playing at the look on Jace’s face. “Yeah?”

   Jace’s gaze dropped to the seraph blade in Simon’s hands. “You said you knew what it was,” he said quietly. “Did you mean it?”

   His stomach knotted, but Simon made himself nod. “Yep,” he replied casually. “Isabelle told me.” He paused, remembering how she’d reacted to hearing about Simiel’s light. “Most of it, anyway,” he amended.

   One of Jace’s eyebrows lifted. “Most of it?”

   Simon looked down at the crystal in his hands. “I know it’s an _armask_ _ō_ blade,” he said softly. “That you named it after me. I know it’s a kind of, a declaration. Of. Romantic inclinations.” He turned the silvery dowel over. “I know normal seraph blades aren’t supposed to light up like Simiel did.”

   Jace nodded slowly. “That’s all true.” He paused a moment. “Not all _armask_ _ō_ blades are true ones,” he said finally. “Sometimes, they’re just a political statement. The way two people can marry for a family alliance rather than for love.” He looked at Simon. “The true _armask_ _ō_ knives – the ones given out of – they have the light.”

   Simon couldn’t quite hear his heartbeat, but the inside of his head fell so silent that he came close. “Why do they light up like that, Jace?” he asked quietly. Sure that he already knew the answer, but not daring to believe it. His silent mind was spinning like a Catherine wheel, scattering glittering sparks.

   Jace was sitting with his knees folded under him, his hands resting on his thighs. “Every seraph blade has power. The true _armask_ _ō_ sword, though, has more.”

   Simon’s pulse beat in his fingertips. “Why?”

   Jace’s eyes met his, and for a moment – just a breath of time – it was like looking down into clear water. Simon glimpsed the Shadowhunter’s core, vulnerable and heart wrenchingly brave in its vulnerability, just as Jace said, “Because they have the same power a mundane woman has, when she lifts a burning car off her children.”

   _Love_.

   The word hung between them, unspoken, an opal bead strung on silk thread drawn taut from Jace’s lips to Simon’s heart. A dozen memories flashed through Simon’s internal cinema – all the times Simiel had lit up like a star in his hand, driving back the darkness. Its light had fought off the Silent Brothers and blown up a ballroom full of vampires (while leaving Jace untouched, he remembered suddenly). Every time he’d been really scared – every time it had protected him –

   That had been Jace. Jace’s heart, standing between Simon and the shadows.

   “Jace,” Simon whispered. He didn’t know what to say: nothing seemed big enough, powerful enough. He could hear the chord in his head, the ripple of notes that would encapsulate what he felt, but he had no way to put them into words.

   Jace reached into the bag again. “This was my mother’s,” he murmured, drawing out a cuff of dark leather. “My father gave it to her. For years she wore the _armask_ _ō_ he gave her in it.”

   He held it out. Hardly daring to breathe, Simon lowered Simiel onto the picnic blanket and accepted the cuff. It was butter-soft, and dyed onyx-black. Small raised stars, some crystal and some silver, formed a circle: at the centre of it were a number of metal clasps, clearly meant to hold something in place. They looked like the setting for a gem, but the jewel was missing...

   No. Not missing. He held Simiel up alongside the cuff, and saw at once that the hilt would fit perfectly into the setting.

   _Simiel is the jewel._

   “The fashion’s died out now, because _armask_ _ō_ blades are rarer than they used to be. But in the old days, when someone accepted an _armask_ _ō_ suit, they would wear the blade in a bracelet like that one.” Jace’s voice hummed with intensity, like white noise woven behind each word. But white noise had never been so meaningful. “I – I would be honoured if you would wear Simiel in it.”

   _Yes,_ Simon thought instantly, without hesitation. He swallowed the word back with difficulty. “What exactly would I be agreeing to, if I did?”

   Jace’s mouth quirked up, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s not an engagement,” he assured Simon. “It’s like wearing a claddagh ring point-inwards: it means that you’re in a relationship. That you’re taken.”

   He paused, and Simon looked up at him, hearing the unspoken words.

   “It means that you’re mine,” Jace said softly. “And I’m yours.”

   Simon nodded slowly.

   Then he snapped Simiel into place and slipped the cuff over his left wrist.


	19. Interlude: Faerie Stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long, guys! And I’m sorry it’s only an interlude. I promise I’m working on the next chapter as fast as I can!
> 
> But GREAT NEWS: my leira (my hubby <3) has just gotten an awesome job as a copywriter, AND made it into the evening school he wanted. Woot! So in a few months I’ll be apartment hunting in Helsinki! How cool is that?
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been leaving such wonderful reviews! You guys bring me to tears sometimes, you really do. I LOVE YOU ALL! <3

   Breakfast at the Institute was, by and large, a laid-back affair. The vast majority of a Shadowhunter’s work took place at night, which meant that the few active hunters who weren’t flat-out nocturnal slept until the sun was high in the sky as a matter of course.

   But if Jace went on patrol, Alec went with him, and didn’t wake up without him the next morning: they _both_ slept until nearly noon, on a normal day. Sitting at the breakfast table and seeing his _parabatai_ ’s chair empty was like waking up in a mirror version of your own house: you recognised it and could navigate it if you had to, but it was deeply, intrinsically wrong. The space where Jace should be gaped like a missing tooth, and Alec couldn’t keep from worrying at it, glancing at the chair every few seconds as if Jace might have teleported into it when he wasn’t looking.

   Each time, Jace was still missing.

   No, not missing. Alec’s stomach clenched sickly, miserably, because he knew exactly where Jace was right now.

   A low, heavy _boom_ broke through the building, the sound a tangible vibration in Alec’s bones. Isabelle threw down her spoon like a duellist’s glove, clearly grateful for the distraction. “I’ll get it.”

   She swept out of the room. Alec picked at his cereal, keeping his eyes down. He could feel Hodge’s gaze from the other side of the table, but he had no interest in his tutor’s well-meaning concern. The lump in his throat was a hot coal.

   His sister reappeared in the doorway. “It’s for you,” she announced.

   Hodge began to rise from his chair, but Isabelle waved him down. “No, for _Alec_.”

   Alec looked up, startled out of his maudlin thoughts. “Who wants to see _me?_ ” It wasn’t as though he had any friends who might pop around for a chat. Jace was all he had.

   She grinned at him. “You’ll just have to go and find out, won’t you?” Instead of returning to her breakfast, she flounced out, leaving him staring at the space she’d just occupied and wondering how she managed to leave him feeling like he’d been hit in the head with a mace. “I put him in the blue room,” she called over her shoulder.

   She hadn’t even _touched_ him...

   “Aren’t you going to go see who your visitor is?” Hodge asked.

   “What? Uh, yeah.” Alec rose and dumped his bowl in the sink, making his way out of the kitchen with an unwilling curl of curiosity stretching and vibrating in the pit of his stomach. His parents wouldn’t pull anything like this; he didn’t know any Shadowhunters who would be more interested in talking to him than to Hodge; and he had no friends who might come and visit. No matter how he tried to puzzle it out, his mind just spun in dizzy circles, unable to provide a possible identity for the person waiting for him.

   He pushed open the door to the blue room. “Hello?”

   The figure standing by the window turned towards him. “Alexander.” Golden cat-eyes gleamed, and Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, smiled at him. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

   “N-no.” Alec swallowed hard, his hand still frozen on the door. Magnus was dressed far more conservatively today than he had been at the party last night, but it was still difficult for Alec to tear his eyes away. Beneath a black jacket with a high, flaring collar the warlock’s t-shirt was tight enough to hint at muscle tone that would rival that of a Shadowhunter; the shape of a tie had been printed or painted on the fabric in thick silver glitter. The jacket’s sleeves ended just below the elbow; beneath them Magnus wore rainbow-coloured fingerless gloves that were incongruous with all the black. “Sorry. Is there something I can help you with?” A thought occurred to him. “Is this about last night?”

   “In a way.” Magnus considered him for a moment. Alec saw that there was burnished gold eyeshadow on each of Magnus’ eyelids. “Upon further consideration, I realised that I might have had more responsibility for young Clary’s predicament than I was willing to recognise last night. I came here to present her with a small token of my apology. Would you give it to her for me?”

   Willingly interact with the mundane? The girl was Simon’s best friend: Alec thought of her with distaste. And yet... “Why can’t you give it to her yourself?”

   Magnus’ lips quirked up. “Your delightful sister informed me that Clary is not in residence just now.” He rose one eyebrow questioningly.

   Alec found himself nodding before he’d made any conscious decision to agree.

   “Wonderful,” Magnus purred. He twisted his hand suddenly, a quick little _flick_ of motion, and abruptly there was a small object lying in his palm. Alec managed not to start, but his eyes widened slightly, both from the sight of the gift and its sudden appearance. It was a faerie stone – and a beautiful one; polished smooth, it was about the size of the ring made by Alec’s thumb and index finger. The hole worn through it – by wind and rain and luck, Alec knew, not by any mortal or immortal hand – had been left rough, unpolished, but it was wide, easily big enough to encircle a human’s eye.

   A few rare Nephilim were born with a blinded Inner Eye. If they wanted to be Shadowhunters, they used faerie stones – because even mundanes could see the Shadow World if they looked at it through a stone with a naturally-worn hole in it. 

   “Well?” the warlock asked after a moment. Alec looked up at Magnus’ face, and felt his insides squirm with embarrassment; the Downworlder was clearly amused. “Will you come and take it, Alec?” He smirked. “I promise I don’t bite – not unless you ask me nicely.”

   Alec flushed. With quick, almost angry strides he crossed the space between them and snatched the gift from Magnus’ hand. He pulled back quickly, but somehow he still felt Magnus’ fingertips brush the underside of his wrist as he wrenched his hand away – a bare, feather-light touch that nonetheless seared Alec to the bone.

   Magnus seemed unperturbed by Alec’s abruptness. “Please convey my apologies to her, when you see her.”

   _Who?_ Alec almost asked, remembering only just in time. “Of course.”

   Magnus beamed. “Thank you.” He bowed his head shallowly, made some strangely elegant gesture with his wrist. “I’ll let you get back to your day.” His smile sharpened a little, his eyelids dipping as he moved past Alec for the door. “Until we meet again, Alexander.”

   He was gone before Alec could process that he was leaving.

   With effort, Alec uncurled his fingers from around the faerie stone. The power in them only worked if the stones were entirely unmanufactured – you couldn’t bore a hole through a pebble by hand, and you couldn’t go looking for the real thing. The hole had to be natural, and the stones had to be found by chance. Real faerie stones, not the secretly man-made ones found in gift shops all over the British Isles, were incredibly rare. The bigger they were, the greater their worth, because the more you could see through them at once. One as large and perfect as the one in his hand now...

   Why had the High Warlock of Brooklyn given up a priceless treasure for a mundane girl he’d barely met?

* * *

 

NOTES

Faerie stones are real things! Google ‘em if you don’t believe me. (Because we all know Google tells only the truth...)


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one goes out to EVERYBODY. You've no idea how amazing and encouraging all your comments and reviews are. My replies always feel so lame and trite, because I can't possibly express how happy you guys make me. You're all incredible; I just want you to know that.
> 
> Also incredible is Cassie, my amazing, AMAZING beta! She was an EVEN BIGGER HELP THAN USUAL with this chapter, and she had it all beta-ed for me IN AN HOUR, so you guys owe her a standing ovation. 
> 
> Now READ ON, PEASANTS! You're gonna love this~

“You know,” Simon mused, “I was prepared to say that you were Sirius Black, what with the motorcycle incident, and your crazy habit of laughing in the face of danger. I was going to put my first impression of you aside.” He ran his hand through Jace’s hair, trying to keep the crazy grin off his face. “But the stalking at Java, and now the piano music? I’m sorry, my friend, but it’s true: you are Edward Cullen.”

   Jace didn’t open his eyes. His head was pillowed on Simon’s chest; they were still lying on the picnic blanket. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

   Simon cackled, because he was an evil, evil person, and that was how they ended up watching _Twilight_ on Simon’s iPad at some ridiculous hour of the morning.

   It took a while. Simon’s stuff was still in the Infirmary, and they had to tidy up the music room first. And Jace’s hair was dishevelled, with a darkening red mark on his neck that Simon didn’t remember putting there but approved of immensely, and to make a long story short they got a little distracted.

   Also, it wasn’t as though Simon actually had _Twilight_ on his iPad. Because he had this thing called _taste_ , as evidenced by the gorgeous example of hunky perfection next to him and Simon was so freaking grateful that Shadowhunters couldn’t read minds.

   Although Jace’s smirk said he knew exactly what Simon was thinking.

   “Shut up and watch the movie,” Simon ordered, but he was grinning. They had moved into Jace’s bedroom, and by tacit agreement had pulled the blankets off the bed and made a nest on the floor, the way they had for _Lord of the Rings_. Youtube had thoughtfully provided _Twilight_ , in nine separate parts, and Simon was trying to be a little less hyperaware of Jace’s body lying next to his.

   It wasn’t working.

   When he wasn’t sneaking glances at Jace – who was growing more and more confused and scandalised by the film (“Cloud cover is not enough to keep a vampire safe from sunlight. This is a ridiculous – is he _sparkling?_ SIMON. SIMON WHY DOES THE VAMPIRE SPARKLE? Raziel, Magnus took the bite, didn’t he? Magnus is hiding in a small American town and glittering at teenage girls.” “ _Stupid_ teenage girls.” “STAKE HIM BELLA!”) Simon kept looking down at his left wrist. Every time he caught sight of the cuff it sent a jolt of nervous joy through him – a shot of something sweet and electric injected straight to the vein. The cuff was so _obvious_ , impossible to miss – stark and black against his skin, the stars silvery and bright in contrast, and Simiel’s crystal glimmer framed at the centre. It was beautiful, but beautiful the way Jace was, the way Simiel was: not feminine in the slightest. The clasps that held the seraph blade in place were elegant, and looked strong, but they would clearly come free in an instant if he needed to use Simiel to defend himself. It was like the concept of wedding-swords: even the jewellery Shadowhunters used to declare themselves romantically attached could become weapons in an instant.

   It was seriously cool.

   He ran the thumb of his other hand over the soft leather. Obvious. Eye-catching. Even if worn with the all-black Shadowhunter hunting gear, the stars and Simiel’s glitter would call attention to themselves. Nobody was supposed to miss its presence on his wrist.

   When he looked up, he found Jace watching him, his eyes very bright. Without a word the blond reached out and took Simon’s left hand – a breath, a pause, the slightest hesitation as if he wasn’t sure he had permission to do so. Or maybe he just wasn’t sure how to be with a guy yet, wasn’t sure whether hand-holding was allowed, or if it was too girly and would insult Simon somehow.

   Simon laced their fingers together firmly, and smiled.

*

   He passed out somewhere around the baseball game, with Jace’s appalled, hilarious commentary (“Baseball? They play BASEBALL?”) lulling him to sleep.

   And into dreams.

_It was a party, and Simon was at the centre of it, laughing as he and Jace whirled exhilaratingly over a floor of snowy marble, beneath chandeliers blossoming like crystal flowers. The room was a dazzling rainbow of people, men and women in green, silver, blue, crimson – jewel tones and pastels, and warm smiles flashing Simon’s way like jewellery. Simon smiled back, recognising faces that he didn’t know in the waking world. He was wearing a suit, and over his crisp white shirt his jacket was golden, embroidered with black runes. Jace was his mirror, his ebony suit ornamented with glittering golden Marks that flashed fire beneath the lights._

_Simiel shone like a diamond on Simon’s wrist._

_“Happy to be here?” Jace asked, his gaze alight and warm._

_“I can’t imagine being happier,” Simon replied, grinning. He stopped them from dancing and stole a kiss, and heard fond laughter rise around them, even an approving wolf-whistle or two._

_“Ahem.”_

_They broke the kiss to that amused cough, and found Jocelyn standing beside them. She was a vision in green velvet, her red hair swept up over her head with a gleaming comb. “What?” she asked as they both looked at her. She was grinning. “Can’t a mother congratulate her son on his_ armaskō _bond?”_

_Simon threw his arms around her. She hugged him back just as tightly. “Congrats, boyo,” she whispered in his ear. “Make sure you keep this one, hm? He’s gorgeous!”_

_He laughed. “I will,” he assured her, reaching out his hand for Jace’s. Jace squeezed back._

_Jocelyn smiled. “Smart boy.” She held out an envelope to him, the fancy gold kind that Clary’s relatives had all given her for her Bat Mitzvah. Simon took and opened it one-handed, with difficulty, expecting a_ Congratulations On Your Bond! _card. Jace peered over Simon’s shoulder to see._

_As the envelope drifted to the ground, Simon was left holding the card from Dorothea’s tarot deck – the Ace of Cups. He stared at it in confusion._

_Abruptly the card was plucked from his fingers, and Simon cried out with shock as the motion sliced a paper-cut on the pad of his index finger. Blood welled, and spilled: in the instant before the card vanished from his sight Simon’s mind caught it like a snapshot, saw the painting’s colours washed away by the blood, gone grey as stone as trickles of wet red traced music notes over the hand and the goblet..._

_As if he’d pricked himself on a cursed spinning wheel, cold fear flooded him. Jace’s fingers slipped soundlessly from his grasp, and Simon looked up into familiar eyes gone dark with triumph._

_“Miss me?” Sebastian purred. Simon felt sick and dizzy, and the lights and sounds of the party faded away as Sebastian took Simon’s right hand, now slick and red with blood that flowed like water, and raised it. He kissed Simon’s bloodied fingers, and withdrew something from his pocket._

_“Where’s Jace?” Simon could only manage a whisper. He was so weak that it was a struggle just to turn his head, and all he could see was darkness in every direction. But he could hear wind rushing past them, and he realised suddenly that he and Sebastian were somewhere very high up. They were standing on a platform about the size of a manhole cover. One wrong move would send them both plummeting._

_He looked at Sebastian, panicking. The other boy smirked, and pushed what he held – a white_ armaskō _cuff – over Simon’s hand and onto his wrist, ignoring the way Simon’s wound left smears and streaks of bright red blood on it. It clamped down on Simon’s arm like a manacle, and the seraph blade in it glittered like ice, like death._

_“No!” Simon shouted, his horror giving him new strength. He tried to wrench his arm free, but a silver chain unspooled from the white cuff as he did, a leash that ended in Sebastian’s hand. He only laughed and used the chain to tug Simon close again, and Simon was cold and dizzy and terrified._

_“Yes,” Sebastian breathed against Simon’s ear, cruel and triumphant, and his voice was like a drug, like poison. Simon felt his bones melting, weak and helpless and sick with fear. “You’re mine, Symeon – my beloved sacrifice.”_

That’s not my name, _Simon tried to say, but his tongue was as thick and heavy as lead in his mouth, and Sebastian was letting go of him, letting go and he pushed Simon back and Simon fell, down and down into the darkness, and he couldn’t even scream as it swallowed him whole._

*

   Simon jack-knifed upright, gasping for breath with the cry he couldn’t make clogging his throat.

   “Simon?” Jace lay tense beside him, taut as though ready to massacre the monsters in Simon’s mind. Sunlight spilled across his face from the window, bright and sticky as honey – they’d slept late. Jace pushed himself up and brushed his fingertips over Simon’s arm. “You’re awake now. It’s done.”

   Not _it’s over_. Not _it was just a dream._ Simon wondered about that as he caught his breath. Sebastian, the white cuff, the chain. _Symeon._ The name echoed inside him, struck his heart like a tuning fork, and the sound it made...

   ...Struck a chord and triggered another. Like falling dominoes a ripple of notes played through his mind, one after the other. He knew this song, had glimpsed it written out in blood in his dream...

   He hummed softly, trying to sound it out aloud.

   “What – ” Jace began, but Simon flung up a hand to silence him, squeezing his eyes shut tightly so he could concentrate. The melody drew a bow over his heartstrings and played them like a violin, coaxing his focus inward, drawing him in like sirensong. There was a beat to it, a pulse that wove itself in with his own, and as the music sped so did his breathing. Soft, seductive, maddeningly familiar: Simon kept humming, desperate to embody the sound, to make it real and manifest. When Jace tried to speak Simon put his hands over his ears, shutting him out. Distantly he knew there was something strange in this, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop, to care about anything but the song in his head. He _knew_ it, knew it somewhere deeper than conscious thought; it ached in his chest, in his fingertips, an orchestra of sighs and strings caught inside his skull like a flower in amber. If he could only get it _out_...

   He swayed a little in time with the music, restless and energised. It wasn’t enough: still with his eyes closed he shoved himself to his feet, ignoring the insect-bite of Jace’s voice. He had to _move_ , he had to _sing_ , wordless though the song was; his spread his arms wide and spun, slowly, and then faster, deaf and blind to everything but the building, pulsing, throbbing music. It was demanding, frantic, a wild, burning urgency that was nearly sexual in its sheer _need_. Faster and faster, panting, his whole body clenched tight and the insistent music drowning out _everything_ , the breath in his lungs and the beat in his chest – no, _using_ them, using his breath for the flutes and his pulse for the drums, his body was an instrument, the melody was playing itself on _him_ , louder and louder until something snapped inside him and he could _see_ it, see it like a synesthesiac, a rainstorm of colours –

   And the _shapes_ –

   Everything stopped, guillotine-sharp. The silence was deafening.

   “Simon?” Jace asked cautiously.

   Simon opened his eyes. The shapes still hung in front of him, black and violet like the afterimage from staring into the sun. And when they faded from his sight, they were still stark and bright on the inside of his eyelids.

   “I’m seeing runes.” His voice emerged strangely even, far calmer than he thought was appropriate.

   “Which ones?”

   That threw Simon for a moment: he’d expected a very different reaction. “I don’t know,” he said carefully. “They didn’t introduce themselves. Sorry. Next time I’ll have my butler ask for their cards!”

   Jace, quite sensibly, ignored this. “Could you draw them?”

   “I – I think so?”

   Moments later, Simon felt his notebook being pushed into his hand. Swallowing hard, he flipped to a blank page and tried to keep his hand from shaking as he traced out the runes. He couldn’t help seeing them as music notes; he shuddered as he wrote them down, feeling an echo of the melody they made whisper over his bones as they slid through him and onto the paper.

   “What are they?” he whispered when he was done.

   He didn’t dare move as Jace – the blond stood to the left and slightly behind Simon, out of his line of sight – took the notebook from him. “I don’t recognise them,” Jace admitted. His voice was brittle. “How do _you_ know them?”

   “I don’t. But I dreamed them.” Simon closed his eyes again and tried to remember how to breathe: the runes were somehow black and also white, both at once, gleaming like stars inside his skull. “Only they were music notes, written in my blood.”

   He heard the notebook hit the floor, and then Jace’s hand was on his shoulder, spinning him around. Simon’s eyes came open and suddenly Jace’s mouth was on his, hard and frantic. His fingers bit into Simon’s hips like anchors, like lead weights to keep Simon from flying away and getting lost.

   It only lasted a moment. Their lips separated, and Jace pressed their foreheads together. “You couldn’t hear me,” he said quietly. “I was shouting your name, and you couldn’t hear me.”

   His voice didn’t shake, but there were shards buried in it, razors and glass hidden beneath calm snow. They sliced at Simon, cutting and chilling, because Jace was right – Simon hadn’t heard a thing.

   He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know the song to ease the fear caught between them, or the magic words to banish the runes still glowing behind his eyes. He hugged Jace instead, and felt Jace hug back, as if he could keep Simon safe if he just held on tightly enough.

   “Hodge will probably know what they mean,” Jace murmured. “The Marks.”

   Simon felt an electric vibration pass through him, like a plucked string. He shivered. “Then let’s go ask Hodge,” he said softly.

*

   The moment he walked into the kitchen, the room went quiet.

   “No.” Alec’s eyes were too bright, and his voice too even. “You didn’t.”

   Simon had almost forgotten the cuff; he glanced down at it and resisted the urge to hide his wrist behind his back. Suddenly it seemed to weigh ten pounds on his arm. The room was brightly lit, the summer sun playing over the neat counters, the carving knives in their stand, the tidy wooden spice rack – and Simiel, flashing diamond-bright in a single ray of sunlight.

   He’d been right. It _was_ impossible to miss.

   “You _didn’t_ ,” Alec repeated – not a plea, but an outraged command that Jace tell him that he was hallucinating. That Simon was not wearing Jace’s _armask_ _ō_ cuff.

   “Alec,” Isabelle said softly, but he ignored her, his gaze remaining fixed on his _parabatai_. Simon felt sick.

   Jace’s face was impassive. “I’m sorry if you don’t approve.”

   _“Approve?”_ Alec shoved his chair back violently, almost lunging to his feet. “You give your _armask_ _ō_ to this _cæcus athumos_ , and you expect me to – ”

   Jace hit him. Simon didn’t even see him move, but suddenly Jace was on the other side of the room and Alec was on the ground, holding his bleeding nose and swearing by names and creatures Simon had never heard of.

 _“Jace!”_ Isabelle shouted, and Hodge was trying to restore order but everyone was ignoring him, Jace blazing with righteous fury like an angel of wrath and Isabelle yelling at Jace and Alec snarling and Simon – Simon just froze, unable to believe the chaos.

   “I told you,” Jace said softly, and it made no sense that Simon could hear him over all the noise but somehow, somehow he could, “never to call him that again.”

   It was too much. _Far_ too much. Simon knew that Jace was shaken by what had happened in his room – by the music that had taken Simon over, and the strange runes he’d seen in its grip. But that didn’t make hitting Alec any less ridiculous – Simon couldn’t be offended by an insult he didn’t even understand, and he was no damsel in distress who needed Jace to defend his honour _anyway_ and everyone was yelling and there wasn’t _time_ for this alpha male posturing crap. Unnoticed by everyone, Simon stalked over to the counter, grabbed a saucepan, and slammed it against the counter.

   “QUIET!”

   They all shut up.

   Simon glared at them. Only when he was sure he had their attention did he put the pan back in its place. “Now,” he said quietly, “if you could all act your age, I’d appreciate it.” He looked over at Hodge. The man was staring at Simon with a strange, almost shocked expression – as if he’d seen a ghost. It made Simon uncomfortable; sent his confidence skittering away and left him just a child again. “Um, Jace and I had something we wanted to ask you,” he said lamely.

   Hodge shook himself. “Yes, of course. What is it?”

   Wordlessly, Jace pulled the page from Simon’s notebook out of his pocket and handed it to his tutor. “What are these?”

   Hodge took the paper carefully, as if he were handling a 500-year-old manuscript instead of a page torn from a spiral-bound notepad. Isabelle pulled a stele out of her pocket, but when she made to give her brother a healing rune Alec pushed her away.

   “They do look familiar,” Hodge said thoughtfully, as Alec got to his feet. Jace watched his _parabatai_ , and Simon watched Jace: he might have been the only one to see the lost, tired look on the blond’s face. It was gone in an instant. “I will have to do some research. Where did you say you saw them?”

   Ignoring Isabelle’s attempt at fussing, Alec’s gaze cut across the room, his eyes two blue bolts that nearly knocked Simon back a pace. But Simon held his ground, even when the Shadowhunter moved away from his sister and stalked towards Simon. “We need to talk, mundane.”

   Jace stiffened, and even Hodge looked up from the runes, with a warning, “Alexander...”

   “Alec, for Raziel’s sake!” Isabelle cried angrily. “Let it go already!”

   Sparks of white fire threaded through Simiel, wary and ready. Simon waved them all down – Isabelle, Hodge, Jace. The not-quite-consciousness that dwelled in his seraph blade. “It’s fine. He’s right, we do.” He tried for casual, not sure how well he was succeeding. “Where?”

   Alec jerked his head towards the door. As he cut past Simon, his shoulder brushed the singer’s – not quite a shove, but not accidental either. Simon grit his teeth, counted to ten, and flashed Jace what he hoped was a reassuring smile before he turned and followed Alec out into the hallway.

   He caught the low murmur of voices – Hodge questioning Jace about the runes – before Alec closed the kitchen door behind them.

   “You said you were going to stay away from him.”

   _No air. Trying to breathe through the broken mess of his throat. Unable to scream as everything started going dark._ Simon suppressed a shudder. He couldn’t quite force the memory away; suddenly he wished he hadn’t been so quick to agree to this. He’d faced down vampires without flinching, but on the other hand, none of the vamps had gotten close to killing him.

   Alec very nearly had.

   “Doesn’t Jace get a say in this?” Simon asked lightly.

   “He’s not thinking straight.” Alec’s eyes were bright and hard, and apparently blind to the irony of his statement. “He hasn’t been since you showed up. This, this _insanity_ – ” His gaze flicked to Simiel and back to Simon’s face, “ – is just more proof that you’re not good for him!”

   “I don’t think that’s your call to make.” Simon fought to keep his voice measured. “It’s Jace’s, and he’s made his decision perfectly clear.”

   “It’s not his decision to make!” Alec snapped. “Do you have _any idea_ what it means to wear that? What it means that he gave it to you, or what the Clave will do when they find out? You’re – ” He stopped. Reined himself in for a beat. Two. When he spoke again, he was calmer. “It’s not too late,” he said coaxingly. “You can give it back. You can walk away. You _must_ know that that would be better for everyone.” He snorted. “Where do you think this can end? With Jace leaving the Shadow World for you, like some fairytale? Shadowhunting is his _life_. Giving it up would destroy him. But how could you know that? You’ve known him for a few days. You don’t know him at all.”

   Simon thought about it. He thought about the flat, even tone of Jace’s voice as he described his father’s murder; the way he’d laughed at the Forsaken; the puzzled fondness at Simon’s antics and pop culture references. He thought about being handed Simiel for the first time, and the look on the blond’s face when Simon reached for the blade in the Bone City. Jace’s whooping as the motorcycle plunged, the grace of his hands when applied to a piano or knife or a pair of chopsticks, the way Jace must have been _listening_ to all those references, to give the manga-and-anime fan a surprise meal of sushi. He thought about how Jace had been the only one to promise that they would find Jocelyn, and how he hadn’t hesitated a moment in going after Clary. 

   The way he’d pressed their foreheads together, when he was scared for Simon but couldn’t admit it.

   “I don’t need to know his favourite colour to know _him_ ,” Simon murmured. He sighed and slipped his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. He and Jace had slept late, but Simon still felt tired. “You’re right about one thing – I don’t know where it’s going to go. But you know what? That’s for me and Jace to figure out, _not you_.” He let his hand fall. “You – you can just _fuck off_ , because what he and I do is _none of your God damn business!”_

   He half expected Alec to attack him, but he didn’t. Alec’s china-pretty face twisted with disgust, instead – disgust and contempt, as if Simon were something sub-human. “You mundanes are completely selfish, aren’t you? Have you no idea what he’s done for you, what kind of personal risks he’s taken? You almost got him killed last night, haring off after your friend like that, but it’s more than his safety. He could lose _everything_ over this. Over _you_ – he’s already lost his parents; do you want to make sure he loses the family he’s got left as well?” He stepped closer; Simon held his ground, refusing to move back, resisting the urge to bare his teeth and punch Alec in his smug, condescending nose.

    “Jace is the scion of one of the First Families,” Alec said lowly, “and the best Shadowhunter of our generation. And you? You are _nothing_. You don’t know what it means to be one of us; you don’t know what it means to be a Wayland. He has a responsibility to continue his bloodline, and if he doesn’t the Clave will destroy him for it. Being with you will cost him _everything_ , so if you even _think_ you love him – if you even _like_ him – you will give his _armask_ _ō_ back and walk away. You’ll let him have the life he deserves; you’ll let him find a Shadowhunter girl and be _happy_.”

   “Like you will, you mean?” And everything was bright and white and hot in his head, because how dare Alec? How _dare_ he? Simon had no idea if anything he said was true, and he was inclined to think that the bits that _were_ true were exaggerated because Alec wasn’t exactly unbiased. But even if it were _all_ true Alec had no right to try and drive Simon away. Not like this, behind Jace’s back. Simon wasn’t blind or stupid or oblivious, he wasn’t so lacking in self-confidence that he couldn’t _see_ how happy he made Jace, and for Alec to try and ruin that – “Are you going to find a nice girl to settle down with too, Alec? Or do you think that if I’m gone Jace might finally fall into bed with _you?”_

   Alec _moved_ , blindingly fast. His hands fisted in Simon’s shirt and Simon’s head cracked against the wall as Alec shoved him violently against it. Simiel blazed up and the white light cast shadows over Alec’s face and pain burst like a rotten fruit in the back of Simon’s skull and _no, no, not this again._ “You have no idea of the storm that will sweep you up, the moment the Clave hears of this,” Alec hissed. “They will tear you apart. That’s how this is going to end, Simon. Not with Jace joining your little boy band, not with you becoming a Shadowhunter. Because you can’t, you don’t have what it takes – you are _nothing_ , you are _not worth him_ – ”

   Simon slammed his knee into Alec’s crotch.

   “I am not nothing,” Simon snarled as Alec crumpled, clutching his family jewels and Simon would have been lying if he’d claimed not to feel a vicious, triumphant satisfaction in the sight. “And Jace and I – we might last ten years or ten minutes, but you know what, Alec? Right now, I make him happy. And if you try and compromise that, if you try and _hurt him like that_ , I swear by Crom and Grayskull I will _end you_. I will show you exactlyhow _not nothing_ I am.”

   He knew Jace could take care of himself. He’d seen it dozens of times this week. But he remembered Jace’s voice saying _It soaked my shoes_ , thought of a ten year old watching his father die and a young man murmuring _you couldn’t hear me_ , and he _dared_ Alec to mess with Jace’s happiness. Dared him to even _try_.

   “So stay the fuck out of it,” Simon spat, his head pounding and his hands, his arms, his entire body _shaking_ with rage and excess adrenaline. But he wasn’t so far gone as to kick Alec when he was down. Because Simon was his mother’s son, he only walked around Alec, leaving him to deal with his bruised...ego in whatever way he saw fit. But he didn’t head for the kitchen. He went to the staircase and took the steps two at a time, running up and up and up as if the clock had turned back and the werewolves from the Dumort were snapping at his heels.

*

   “Can I come in?”

   Simon looked up. “It’s your room,” he said lightly, lowering his iPad. “It would be a bit weird if I locked you out.”

   Jace softly closed the door behind him. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”

   Simon shrugged. “Felt like it.” As Jace crossed the room to come and sit beside him, Simon asked, “Did Hodge have any ideas about the runes?”

   “Not yet. He’s in the library now, researching. If he can’t find anything on his own he’ll contact some people.” Jace leaned his head back against the wall with a tired sigh, closing his eyes. Then he tilted his head and squinted at the iPad. “What are you doing?”

   “Reading.” Simon angled the gadget so Jace could see. “I prefer paper books, but it’s easier to carry my library around like _this_ than as a pile of paperbacks, you know?”

   “Paper bo – that’s a _book?_ ” Jace’s eyes snapped open all the way. “Explain.”

   Trying not to laugh, Simon briefly explained the concept of e-books, moving out of the book view ( _HP & the Sorcerer’s Stone_, his favourite comfort read) to show Jace his books. Apple’s graphics showed the covers of each book on a pixelated bookshelf – the _Harry Potter_ series, _Game of Thrones_ , _The Lies of Locke Lamora_ , everything Lois McMaster Bujold had ever written alongside _The Golden Compass_ and Emma Bull’s _War for the Oaks_. That last was due for a re-read, Simon thought. He had a whole new sympathy for Eddi, a fellow musician dragged into a Shadow World of her own.

   “This is incredible,” Jace murmured, scrolling down. “And this search function – if we could put all of our esoteric books on something like this, Shadowhunters in the field could find information they needed in minutes, instead of having to spend days or weeks searching through the libraries.”

   Simon blinked. “That’s – wow. _Yes_. You guys should do that!” He would never have thought of so practical an application. “It would be a lot of work in the beginning – you’d have to scan the books manually, and then format them – but the payoff would be so worth it.”

   Jace nodded. “We couldn’t use them in Idris, of course,” he said matter-of-factly, “but since most of our work takes place in the mundane world that wouldn’t be an issue...”

   “Why can’t you use them in Idris?” Simon asked curiously.

   Jace looked up from the screen. “Remember how I told you that if a mundane tried to enter Idris, they’d be transported to the other side? Well, it wouldn’t do any good if we showed up on mundane satellites, now would it? So the same wards keep us hidden from mundane technology.” He shrugged. “Which also means that things like electricity don’t work within the borders.”

   Simon stared. “So you’re saying that Shadowhunters live in a third-world country?”

   “What? No.” Jace looked confused. “Idris is seventh-world.”

   “I – you know what? I’m not going near that one.”

   Simon sat back and watched Jace explore the technology, musing, smiling. It really _had_ been a good idea – and it had occurred to Jace nearly instantly. That razor-sharp intelligence...It tugged at Simon, made him ache with something soft and fond. He marvelled at this young man beside him, and couldn’t blame Alec for wanting him too. Who wouldn’t? Forget Jace’s looks – although that was hard – who wouldn’t be drawn to that quick mind, and his quicker tongue? His grace, his wry humour, his honour, his surprising gentleness. The hot, fierce flame of him; the vulnerability that showed itself in glints and glimmers, like silver fish in dark water, there and gone again in an instant. The fascinating, mesmerising duality of him, able to switch between facets like a spinning dreidel.

   Maybe they would only last ten minutes. Maybe they’d tear each other apart in a conflagration like crashing comets. But Simon couldn’t imagine regretting one single second of their time together.

   “Enjoying the view?” Jace drawled, startling Simon out of his thoughts.

   “Very much,” Simon breathed. He shifted, placing one hand on the floor and leaning his weight on it, cupping Jace’s cheek in his other palm. “I think it deserves a closer look, though...”

   Simon tasted laughter on Jace’s lips, and grinned into the kiss, but the amusement at the cheesy line slipped away when neither of them were paying attention.

   New. This was...new. _They_ were. Simon felt it, like something fragile and precious cupped in his hands: a Fabergé egg forged from Jace’s breath and the sound of the iPad being put aside. The tight ache in the pit of Simon’s stomach and the excited, glittering tenderness that was caught in his throat. Jace’s fingers skimming over Simon’s hair, lightly tracing the back of his neck. The gentle pressure of mouth-on-mouth, light and chaste and painfully, unbearably sweet. There was no urgency to it, no desperate fear or explosive lust. Desire simmered, but didn’t overwhelm.

   They didn’t need it. This, just this, was enough to take Simon’s breath away.

   It felt like hours later that the kiss broke. The twinge in Simon’s wrist brought him back to earth; he brushed his thumb over Jace’s jaw and pulled away softly, as gently as he knew how.

   One glance at Jace’s expression made him want to lean back in and take the blond apart.

   “What was that for?” Jace asked. His voice had gone husky.

   “Do I need a reason?” He brushed his fingertips down the side of Jace’s face, over his neck. “It’s a really good idea, you know,” he murmured. “The e-books. You should submit it to somebody.”

   Jace shook his head and laughed softly. His eyes were bright. “Maybe I will.” He broke their gaze to pick up the iPad and hand it back to Simon. “I actually came up here to bring you down to the training room. It’s about time we got you kitted out.”

   Simon switched off the iPad and set it down. “Excuse me? Kitted out?”

   Jace smirked.

*

   “Hang on,” Simon said wryly, “you’ve led us the wrong way. This is the costume wardrobe of a porn set.”

   Faster than Simon could see, Jace had hooked his fingers in Simon’s belt loops and tugged him closer. Simon’s body went from nought to sixty in about half a second, Jace’s lips barely an inch from his and the wicked, _edible_ smirk on them – “Are you complaining?” Jace purred. His breath slid over Simon’s mouth and made his insides twist.

   “That depends,” Simon said, trying for blithe and knowing he’d failed utterly by the way Jace’s smirk grew wider. “What’s my safeword?”

   “Safeword?” Simon was sure, suddenly, that Jace didn’t know what that meant, but whether that was true or not the blond’s smug expression never wavered. “Please.” Jace’s free hand came up; he pressed two fingertips to the side of Simon’s chin and gently but firmly turned Simon’s face aside. Simon’s knees went weak, the possessive control just _wrecking_ him, even before Jace’s lips brushed his ear.

   “There’s only one word you’ll remember by the time I’m done with you,” Jace breathed, low and fucking _sinful_ and the sound that came out of Simon’s throat was most definitely _not_ a whimper, nope, not a chance. “Can you guess what it is, Simon?”

   He couldn’t fucking _breathe_. _“Jace,”_ he gasped.

   He felt Jace’s lips curve against his ear. “Very good,” he purred. “You get a gold star.”

   Which translated to a short, sharp nip to Simon’s earlobe that nearly tore a moan out of him. And then Jace let him go, so abruptly that Simon nearly fell to his knees, all of him gone boneless and trembling – except for the desperately hard arousal that could have cut through steel. The room felt hot, hot and close, the air thick and heavy against his skin. He wanted to whimper. He wanted to _beg_.

   Holy fucking Hell, Jace was _good_.

   And he knew it too, smirking and smug as if Simon _had_ gone down on his knees, his eyes dark enough to drown in. Simon didn’t want to think about what kind of mess he himself looked like just then. “Screw you,” he managed. Breathless and hoarse.

   “Eventually,” Jace murmured, which was like dropping a lit match on a barrel of kerosene: Simon was a heartbeat away from spontaneous combustion. Jace grinned and, for a mercy, turned his back on Simon. “You get out of those clothes while I find something to fit you,” he tossed over his shoulder.

   Simon was going to self-combust and _die._

   The room Jace had brought him to opened off – or onto, depending on your perspective – the Institute’s training room. Like the training room, its walls were covered in racks and shelves, but instead of weapons the chamber was full of black clothing – black shirts and black trousers, black dresses and skirts, black ankle boots and knee-high boots and combat boots bristling with buckles. There were gloves and gauntlets, belts and bracers, jackets and coats and vests. One glass cabinet featured accessories – silver bangles, necklaces with strange pendants, chokers of razor-sharp wire, rings glittering with unfamiliar stones, leather wristbands lined with steel to block a blow. Make-up compacts, lipsticks, bottles of nail varnish and perfume were arrayed next to them, which bemused Simon. Did Shadowhunter women consider make-up another kind of armour, or was the perfume Eau de l’eau bénite? It would be a pretty clever weapon, if so...

   He took a deep breath and tried to keep his fingers from shaking as he undressed.

   Stripping in the locker room was one thing, when your classmates were decent guys and everyone was moving quickly because there was a teacher waiting. Undressing in the same room as someone you were attracted to – while you were blindingly aroused, no less – was entirely different. Even with Jace’s back to him, Simon was hyperaware of – of _everything_ as he pulled his shirt over his head. Every inch of his skin. The tension in Jace’s shoulders. The edges of the metal button that fastened his jeans.

   “Not that I’m against it, but why am I getting kit now?” Simon asked raggedly. _Distract me, or I swear to God I’m going to jump you._

   “Because it’s too dangerous for you not to have any,” Jace said promptly, searching through the shelves. “Last night at the hotel...We got lucky. Next time we might not, and you’re a lot less likely to be really hurt if you’re in gear than if you’re in denim.” He pulled out a pair of trousers while Simon clumsily worked the fastening of his jeans.

   “That’s sweet,” Simon teased. “You’re being protective.”

   “I want you _safe_.”

   The intensity underscoring Jace’s voice made Simon pause. _But you’re not benching me,_ he thought, confusion touching fingertips with wonder. Instead of insisting that Simon be kept safe at home, Jace talked about _next time_ ; at the mention of danger he found Simon armour instead of banishing him out of harm’s way. Was it a cultural thing, was that how Shadowhunters dealt with each other? Or was it respect – did Jace want Simon standing beside him again the next time they faced down a pack of vampires?

   Either way, the thought of the Dumort was enough to make his erection go down. With some focus. Which was a relief, because Jace turned back around just as Simon was finally stepping out of his jeans, and it took a superhuman effort to stay in control of himself.

_Screw you._

_Eventually._

   He swallowed hard and straightened, wearing only his boxers and the _armask_ _ō_ cuff. He’d never been ashamed of his body, and he wasn’t now, but Jace’s gaze was almost tangible, there was greedy heat in it, and it was so damn hard not to _want_.

   “Are those for me?” he asked, nodding at the clothes in Jace’s arms.

   “Well, they _were_ ,” Jace drawled, dragging his eyes up to Simon’s face. “But now I’m reconsidering giving them to you.”

   _Breathe, Simon, breathe._ “Gimme,” Simon ordered, trying not to grin and failing. “You can’t promise presents and then not deliver.”

   Jace snorted, but came closer obediently, a mess of black leather hugged to his chest. His eyes dropped from Simon’s face again, the gold in them molten in a way that made Simon’s stomach clench and his mouth go dry. “Like what you see?” he murmured.

   He already knew the answer. Simon had no six pack and no tan, was comfortably skinny instead of ripped and toned, but Jace wanted him.

   And why wouldn’t he? Simon was freaking _awesome_. He could tie a cherry stem in a knot with his tongue and everything.

   Jace just grinned. “Let’s get you dressed.”

   The implication that Jace was going to help with that was not a false one. The blond assured Simon that the gear was designed to be easy to get on and remove quickly and easily, but there were a lot of pieces that needed to go on in the right order. And Jace might just have been abusing the situation to get his hands on Simon’s skin. Just a little bit.

   It was hard to concentrate with Jace standing so close, with Simon almost-naked. With the calluses on Jace’s fingertips reminding him of the music room, and the silence – because what was there to say while you dressed? – thick and taut and loud.

   _Focus on the clothes, Fray._

   And they did require a great deal of focus. First on was a t-shirt of a soft, thick, stretchy material, skin-tight and breathable; over that went a leather vest that zipped up to his neck, its high collar lined with crystalline chainmail to protect Simon’s throat. Pads of the same Kevlar-like substance that reinforced the vest guarded his knees and groin beneath the black cargo pants, and two snug belts went cross-wise around his hips, bristling with buttons and loops and buckles that Jace explained were for attaching sheaths and pouches to. The gloves left his fingertips bare, for greater dexterity, and ran a line of something thick and hard along the back of each finger – both protecting the fragile digits and reinforcing his fist if he decided to punch someone. From the base of his fingers to just below his elbow a pair of tooled leather vambraces shielded his arms; lined with cool metal, with a layer of soft suede against his skin, they zipped up like the vest. The left-arm one had a metal setting for a seraph blade, just like an _armask_ _ō_ cuff.

   Simiel slipped into place as if it belonged there.

   It took some time. Some of the bits and pieces didn’t fit quite right and had to be swapped out for different sizes. Jace’s hands teased and tortured, and Simon wasn’t sure how he resisted grabbing the back of Jace’s neck and dragging him into the kind of kiss you didn’t end in a hurry. He stood still like a mannequin, his hands fisted, breathing through his nose because to give in was to let Jace win, and he was too stubborn to do that.

   Although his control was shot all to hell when Jace _went down on his knees_.

   “What are you doing?” Simon demanded, ragged and already breathing faster as Jace beamed up at him innocently.

   “Your boots,” the blond reminded him.

   Boots. Sure. Simon couldn’t remember what that word meant, couldn’t think of anything except Jace’s hands curling around his calf, urging his leg up so they could get the boot on. Jace’s mouth, so insanely close to Simon’s cock – all he would have to do is lean forward a little and he’d have his lips on Simon’s inseam –

   He wondered if the designers of this gear had intended for the groin-guard to hide inappropriate erections as well as protect against the kind of attack Simon had used on Alec earlier. Whether they had or not, Simon was grateful for them, because Jace’s palms slid up to the back of Simon’s thigh and Simon was going to _expire_. With a great deal of fire and some really cool special effects, but still, he would be dead, he was going to have a heart attack and _die_ because no one was supposed to be this hot. Jace helped his foot into the boot and Simon couldn’t get the thought out of his head, couldn’t stop imagining Jace’s mouth wrapped around his cock with that self-satisfied smirk.

   _Oh holy Iron Man._ No wait, bad thought, he was pretty sure he knew what Tony Stark would do in this situation –

   “You all right there, Simon?” Jace asked sweetly.

   Simon swallowed a groan. “Perfectly fine,” he managed. “Just...peachy.”

   “Glad to hear it. Other foot, please.”

   The same torture ensued with the other boot. Simon’s self-control was fracturing by the time Jace finally fastened the last buckle.

   And then his hands slid up – and up – and _up_ , until they were stroking over Simon’s thighs –

   “Just tucking these in,” Jace murmured, not waiting for Simon to ask _what are you DOING_ this time. He pushed Simon’s trousers into the boots, tucking them in snugly so that nothing would billow or catch on anything – but the boots weren’t even knee-high, there was no need for Jace’s hands to have wandered up so far...

   Unless he was trying to kill Simon. Which was a distinct possibility at this point.

   Jace curled his palms around the back of Simon’s knees. Smirking up at him as if he could hear Simon’s thoughts, the blond leaned forward and – and –

   Fucking _nipped Simon’s thigh_ –

   Simon’s brain shattered. He hissed and his hips jerked at the sharp pleasure-pain, at the bolt of white lightning that seared him from skull to cock. He grabbed for Jace’s hair but the damn _bastard_ was already unfolding to his feet, all playful and mock-innocent as if Simon couldn’t see the smug heat in his eyes.

   “Nearly done,” Jace breathed.

   “No,” Simon growled. “You’re done _now_.” He fisted his hand in Jace’s hair and jerked him in, crushed their lips together and savour-swallowed Jace’s gasp of surprise. The cooling rods went up in smoke and it was on, nuclear meltdown and Jace surged into him, raking his fingers through Simon’s hair, over his back, grasping his hips, unable to reach skin through Simon’s gear. He made a sound of frustration and Simon just laughed into the kiss, low and husky. He held Jace’s head still by his hair, licking into his mouth and forcing him to take it, drinking down the blond’s thick groan. Jace was shuddering, shaking; he tore at the zipper of Simon’s vest desperately and Simon smirked, slipped his free hand under Jace’s shirt and dragged the rough palm of his glove over the blond’s skin, bit at Jace’s lip and Jace was tearing at him, shoving the vest open until it caught on Simon’s shoulders. One of them snarled; Simon broke the kiss for just long enough to shrug the vest to the floor before diving back in, catching Jace’s mouth hungrily, catching his hair again. Jace’s hands were hot through his shirt, grasping at him, pushing Simon’s shirt up to get at his skin; Simon yanked Jace bodily against him, slid his hand under Jace’s shirt and rested it at the small of Jace’s back, holding him close and stilling him.

   “Not so fast,” Simon purred. He still had his hand in Jace’s hair; he wrenched the blond’s head back, forcing his throat into an arch that Simon couldn’t resist. He dropped his mouth to it, brushing his lips over Jace’s pulse and shivering at the sound Jace made. “Do you remember that four am phone call?”

   “The – ” Simon bit down on the blond’s throat delicately, and Jace’s hips bucked, a hiss tearing through his teeth. “By the _Angel_ , how can that possibly be relevant?”

   Simon smirked. Lifting his head from Jace’s neck – revelling in the curve of his throat and his forced stillness and his quick, harsh pants – Simon tightened his grip in Jace’s hair. Slowly, deliberately, he ground into Jace’s hips and touched his lips to Jace’s ear.

   “Because I can tease too,” he breathed – and let go. He put his hand on Jace’s chest and _shoved_ , watching Jace stumble with a mixture of loss and wild, vicious satisfaction. “Now, is that all of it?”

   Jace stared at him, his gold eyes gone bronze, dark and dazed and smouldering. “What?”

   Simon grinned and gestured at himself. “The clothes. Is this all of them?”

   “...No.” The Shadowhunter breathed in deeply through his nose and dragged his eyes away. “Put the vest back on.”

   Simon did so, not bothering to hide the brandy-burn smugness warm and rich under his skin. By the time he was done Jace had a leather jacket waiting for him, and Simon whistled playfully. “ _Nice_.”

   Jace rolled his eyes. “Arms,” he ordered. Simon obediently held them out, submitting to Jace’s revenge – shivering, but still grinning as Jace’s hands slid over Simon’s upper arms, tugging the sleeve into place. Jace stepped behind him, and his lips brushed the back of Simon’s neck, the sensitive line where his hair began.

   “There you go,” he murmured. “All done.”

   _Breathe, Fray._ Simon licked his lips and swung his arms a little, testing the jacket. He’d never owned anything like it, but yeah, _this_ was how demon hunters were supposed to dress. He had to bite back a giddy laugh, an almost childish, preening excitement coming over him. “Leather vests, leather boots, leather jackets – you guys must go through a lot of cows.”

   Jace laughed softly, nuzzling Simon’s jaw. There was hunger in it, enough to make Simon swallow hard, but there was something lighter too. “Why would we use cow leather?” he asked. Fondly amused. _You ridiculous mundanes and your crazy ideas..._ “It’s dragon.”

   “Dra – oh, no freaking way. I’m _wearing a dragon?!_ ” There was not much that could make Simon forget about sex, with his insanely hot boyfriend (was that an appropriate term?) plastered against his back. But dragons would do it. “Holy fucking _smokes_ , Batman! Are you _serious?!”_

   Jace laughed and laughed and laughed.

* * *

 

NOTES

 _Cæcus_ is Latin for ‘blind’. In context, as a Nephilim insult, Alec is calling Simon a ‘blind [to the Shadow World] spiritless creature’.

Eau de l’eau bénite – holy water perfume. I THINK. My French is not the best.

 

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all your lovely reviews and comments! I'm sorry this took so long. In fact, this is really part one of this chapter - it was getting so long that my beta convinced me it should be split. With a bit of luck part 2 will not take nearly so long, since it's already nearly finished. I hope you enjoy this one!

They did make it to the training room eventually. Or rather, Jace rolled his eyes and finally pulled Simon bodily into the other room, because Simon was still stroking his jacket and crooning to it.

   “I shall call him Smokey, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Smokey,” Simon declared. “Because dragons breathe fire,” he told Jace confidingly, as if Jace might not know. “And also because I am sure I look _smoking_ in this thing.”

   “You really do,” Jace murmured, the corners of his lips quirked upwards.

   Simon grinned at him and blew a kiss. “You say the _sweetest_ things, sugarplum,” he cooed, and cackled when Jace choked. “Your _face!”_ he crowed.

   Jace growled, but his lips kept trying to curve upwards. Finally he gave up, snorting out a laugh. “Seraphs, why do I put up with you?”

   “It’s my animal sex appeal,” Simon replied instantly. “You can’t resist it. Everyone wants to tap this fine ass.” He grinned. “Now are we gonna spar or what?”

   _Or what_ , it seemed. Jace spent minutes instructing Simon on how to affix a variety of weaponry about his person: clearly whoever designed the armour expected their models to be walking armouries. The belts were obviously intended to be weighed down with sharp pointy things of all kinds, but there were also hidden sheaths on the insides of his vambraces, and slots in his boots for another pair of knives, and almost two dozen secret pockets in Smokey, meant for all kinds of deadly goodies.

   To be honest, Simon started tuning it out after a bit, his mind wandering back to the awesomeness of his new jacket. It really _was_ an incredibly badass piece of clothing. It was lined with black silk, with a soft hood for when it was necessary to be sneaky, and like his pants the jacket had a number of Kevlar-like panels sewn into it, front and back, and curved ones over his shoulders. Not that you could tell – they were completely invisible from the outside. If Simon hadn’t been able to feel the weight of them, he’d never have believed Jace’s insistence that they were there at all. Jace had pushed up Smokey’s sleeves, tucking the cuffs beneath Simon’s vambraces so that Simiel was both visible and within easy reach, and the sleeves themselves... Under the training room’s lights, Simon could just make out the shadow of scales, iridescent like sunlight on oil when the light hit them just right – shimmering sapphire blue and rich green like raven feathers.

   It was _awesome_.

   “You know,” he interrupted, taking a wary step back from where Jace was brandishing a wicked-looking dagger, “there is _no point_ in giving me a lot of dangerous pointy things. I don’t know how to use any of them. At best I’m going to poke my own eye out. And then everyone’s going to be sad.”

   “Not at all, cupcake,” Jace said sweetly, grinning wickedly at Simon’s inadvertent look of horror. “That’s what we’re here for – so you can learn how to use them.” He flipped the blade between his fingers, careless of its light-fracturing edges.

   “Careful there, pumpkin,” Simon said lightly. “You can’t finger me without fingers.”

   Jace dropped the knife. The sudden surge of almost vicious lust that flashed across his face made Simon’s breath catch, pinned in place as surely as if Jace had put the dagger through _him_.

   The blond took a deep breath and bent to retrieve the knife. “Don’t do that,” he said huskily, “while I’m holding a weapon.”

   “But you’re so sexy surrounded by sharp things,” Simon murmured, but his heart wasn’t in it. He felt dazed, and more than a little bit breathless still. He caught himself staring at Jace’s mouth, and looked away, a crazy cocktail of lust and joy bubbling up and out of his throat in a little laugh. “Damn, we’re awesome.”

   Jace rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched. “When you’re done stroking your ego, this is supposed to be a lesson.”

   _In sexual frustration?_ Simon thought, swallowing the quip with effort. Jace was talking.

   “For any of these – ” Jace gestured at the weapons covering the training room’s walls, “ – you would need training that I don’t have time to give you. So we’re going to stick to seraph blades.”

   He produced four of the crystal dowels that were by now familiar sights, laying them out on the table for Simon to inspect. “Theliel, Sandalphon, Israfel, and Anael,” he said quietly. Each one glowed briefly in response to its name before dimming again. “These are all unbonded – they _were_ unnamed, but since you probably don’t know your angels I took the liberty of naming them for you.”

   “Thanks.” Simon picked up Israfel, felt it cool and solid against his fingers. “And is there any significance to their names?” he asked with a wry grin, remembering the secret behind Simiel.

   If Jace was thinking the same thing, he didn’t look repentant. He smiled to himself. “You can look them up later.”

   Simon’s eyebrows went up, instantly curious, but he didn’t push it. It was exciting, a little mystery offered with a smile, a secret between – what were they, anyway? _Boyfriends_ sounded too shallow, and _lovers_ too deep. “Israfel,” he said softly, gripping the hilt more tightly as the blade sprang free. “Is there a Shadowhunter word for us? For...boyfriends?”

   Jace glanced at him, his eyes gone sharp and intent. “I suppose at the moment you could call it _shud_ _ō_ ,” he said ironically, although Simon didn’t understand what the joke was supposed to be. “But the words you want are _erastes_ and _eromenos_. Lover and beloved.”

   _Lover and beloved._

   Oh.

   Wow.

   Simon...had no idea what to do with that.

   “Who’s who?” he finally managed.

   Jace smirked, so deliciously arrogant that Simon’s cock twitched behind the groin-guard, and his stomach twisted. “Oh, I’m definitely the _erastes_ ,” he purred. He moved forward, driving Simon back until he met the table – and then Jace was pressing against him, laying his hands on either side of Simon’s hips, caging him in and Simon’s heart was pounding. He dropped Israfel beside the other seraph blades and clutched at the edge of the table as his knees went weak and yeah, okay, his dick was very much paying attention now. Jace dipped his head, brushing his lips over Simon’s throat, and Simon groaned, tipping his head back to give the blond access.

   “And when all this is over,” Jace breathed, dragging his teeth over Simon’s Adam’s apple, “we’re going to play a little game called _harpagmos_.”

   Simon hissed out a breath as Jace’s lips found the underside of his jaw. “Oh?” He lifted his hand and fisted it in Jace’s hair, urging him on. “How do you play?”

   He felt Jace smirk. “It’s very simple. In fact, _you_ don’t have to do anything at all. But at some point, when you’re least expecting it...” He bit down, and Simon gasped, his knuckles going white in Jace’s hair. “I’ll strike,” Jace murmured, low and husky. “And take you. Make off with you, _abduct_ you. On your walk to school, at your band practise – maybe even while you’re asleep in bed. You’ll wake up with my hand over your mouth, and I’ll steal you away.”

   Simon was shaking. He couldn’t breathe, his arousal so thick and hot that he was sure he’d shatter, sure he’d come in his pants if Jace gave him the slightest bit of friction. He _ached_. “You kinky bastard,” he gasped.

   Jace laughed softly. “You have no idea.” He kissed Simon’s jaw and pulled away completely, his eyes glittering with suppressed mirth. “Now why don’t you get a feel for your new blades while I go change?”

   He was gone before Simon could protest, a golden-haired blur, and Simon couldn’t decide whether he wanted to strangle Jace or fuck him senseless. Really? Jace expected him to be able to focus? When Jace was stripping almost-naked on the other side of the door...? Simon glanced at the four new seraph blades, but didn’t move to pick them up: he knew he would only end up losing a finger if he tried them out now.

   Instead he leaned back against the table and folded his arms over his chest, closing his eyes as he pictured it. They’d dressed separately that morning, in the bathroom when they’d taken turns with the shower, so Simon had yet to see Jace naked. But they’d been shirtless last night in the music room, and Simon wouldn’t forget that sight in a hurry. All that golden skin drawn tight over hard muscle... He swallowed hard.

   “This isn’t naptime, Sleeping Beauty.”

   Simon’s eyes snapped open at the warm amusement. “See now, _that_ is something you have to teach me.”

   Jace grinned. “Sorry, sweetiepie. You have to be born this good looking.” He ducked Simon’s playful swipe, laughing.

   “ _No_ , you arrogant ass!” Simon growled, trying not to laugh with him. “The ninja walk. I never hear you coming.”

   “On the contrary,” Jace said lightly, his eyes glittering, “you heard me come just last night.”

   Simon sucked in a breath, liquid heat slamming into him at the reminder, the damn _memory_ of the night before, Jace’s soft hiss of pleasure and his eyelids fluttering as he spilled all over Simon’s fingers – “You’re evil, you know that?”

   Jace just grinned, and Simon tried to remember how to breathe. Seeking a distraction, he ran his eyes over Jace’s clothes, and frowned. “You’re missing a few pieces, aren’t you?”

   In fact, Jace’s outfit was very different to the one he’d put Simon in. The blond’s trousers were tighter, for one thing, and he only had one belt to Simon’s two. But most obvious was the lack of armour – Jace wasn’t wearing a vest, dragon-leather or otherwise, and no vambraces, either. Beneath an incredibly sexy leather jacket he wore only a black cotton t-shirt.

   Jace looked bad-ass and sexy, like something straight out of one of Simon’s fantasies – but he didn’t look _safe_.

   In all senses of the word. Mothers must shepherd their daughters to the other side of the street when they saw Jace coming, looking like that. Simon grinned at the thought.

   Jace gave him an odd look, but didn’t ask. “My gear is personalised. My fighting style focuses on my speed, so the less I’m weighed down the better. You, on the other hand, need all the protection you can get. Now let’s show you how to use your blades.”

   Sighing, Simon picked up Sandalphon. “Stick them with the pointy end?”

   “In essence,” Jace agreed, clearly amused.

   He had Simon holster Anael, Theliel and Israfel at his belts, and then the two boys moved to the centre of the room, excitement churning in Simon’s gut.

   Jace drew a seraph sword of his own. He invoked it with a quick “Rachiel,” and the blade snapped out like the fang of one of Dr. Ernest Drake’s frost dragons. Simon mimicked him, murmuring Sandalphon’s name so that it too splintered into the world.

   “Fighting against most bi-pedal demons – when they don’t or can’t use magic against you – is a little like going up against a very good knife fighter,” Jace told him. “Stand straighter – there, like that. Except that your average demon has ten or twenty knives instead of just one. But the skills that will get you through a knife fight apply equally well to fighting demons.”

   Quick reflexes; flexibility; and serenity. “You can’t be afraid, but you can’t be too brave, either,” Jace instructed. “You have to be calm. It’s inside of you: Shadowhunters are bred for this. We have been for a thousand years. The most important thing is to get out of your own way.”

   And physical endurance, Simon thought, remembering how out of breath he’d gotten, running from Valentine’s Shadowhunters at his apartment. But that was going to take time to build up. Would he be here long enough to grow fit? It was like ice touching the back of his neck, the thought of staying at the Institute for months on end: not because he didn’t want to – although he didn’t, not really – but because it would mean that months from now they still wouldn’t have found his mom.

   _No. We’ll find her._ No other option was acceptable.

   “The first step is knowing your weapon.” Jace glanced at Sandalphon. “Unbonded seraph blades should always be a last resort; they aren’t connected to you the way a bonded blade is.”

   Simon obediently switched Sandalphon for Simiel, while Jace explained that it was difficult to go wrong with a bonded blade. “Anyone who says that a weapon is an extension of your hand or arm is an idiot,” Jace said bluntly. “Fighting bare-handed is completely different to fighting with a knife. Or it should be, if you want to survive it.” But seraph blades – bonded ones – were responsive, almost alive. They were more than just cold lumps of crystal, they worked _with_ you, although Jace couldn’t really explain it; he waved his hand dismissively when Simon asked. “Those are questions for the Iron Sisters. I just kill things.” It was also, apparently, hard to lose a bonded blade in battle, and Simon remembered how Simiel had moved into his fingers when he’d dropped it at the Dumort, rolling an inch or two closer until he could grab it.

   Jace demonstrated – a little smugly, Simon thought – how it was possible to manipulate a seraph sword’s blade. He retracted and extended Rachiel’s blade again and again, making it manifest in different shapes and lengths: a short, triangular knife; a kind of thin scimitar; a stiletto; something Jace called a _kris_ , which had a long wavy blade like a serpent caught in crystal; and then back to what Simon thought of as the default setting, a little longer than the distance from elbow to the tip of the middle finger, and very slightly curved.

   “Teach me how to do that,” Simon ordered.

   Jace grinned. “Maybe later. Right now you don’t need to learn the flashy extras, just how not to get killed.” He altered his stance, and Simon, realising that he had slumped out of his, corrected himself, mimicking Jace as best he could. “Which you will only learn by doing, so – attack me.”

   _Get out of your own way. Don’t think._ But it was nearly impossible not to think; Simon and Clary had tried it once, prompted by a discussion in RE at St Xavier’s. Neither of them could manage a perfect blankness for more than a few seconds, and even that had been a struggle.

   He glanced at Jace warily. How had he done it before? Anger, it had been anger, hadn’t it? Jace had said –

 _Do you think Valentine_ listens _, when your mother begs him not to –_

   He didn’t unlock the door into the place that was glass and ice: he blew the door _down_. Rage exploded within him, dynamite blasting through the walls in his mind and it was white-out, gone, done, he whipped his arm out for Jace’s unprotected chest and felt the connection before he heard it, felt the heavy _clang_ up through his arm and in his chest as Rachiel blocked Simiel and the two blades sang a love-song to each other.

   Jace grinned.

   Simon didn’t. His head was full of static and snow and he was already moving, silent, quick, time was a virus multiplying into infinity and he was the cure. Jace was sand in the wind and Simon was a blizzard, ice and hailstones crashing into amber, Simiel and Rachiel exchanging windchime kisses that tasted of razors: _clash, crash, sing_. The unfamiliar weights of his vambraces suddenly made sense, his body understood how to accommodate the new boots and the plating in his jacket and vest, moved with them and used them. Instincts snapped out like a hand of cards fanning, spades eights royal flush and he twisted into Jace’s attacks, catching Rachiel on his vambraces and turning the seraph blade aside again and again – clumsily, unpractised, but finesse was irrelevant when blunt simplicity worked just as well, and fury was a whetstone.

 _Mom. Valentine._ There were no words, no conscious thoughts, but the emotional hieroglyphs for _mother-family-love-Jocelyn_ and _fear-hate-enemy_ flashed through him. No, it was deeper than that, worse than that; he and Jace circled and darted and skipped lightly away from each other and it was more than just fear, more than just hate. Someone had kidnapped Simon’s mother; and not just anyone, but a megalomaniac who thought Downworlders like Kaelie and Magnus needed to be exterminated, someone who sent Ravener demons and Forsaken to kill a seventeen year old boy. Someone who maybe – probably – was torturing Jocelyn to find out where the Cup was.

 _Do you think Valentine_ listens _, when your mother begs him not to –_

   Fear, hate – try _terror_ , try _loathing_ , try horror and panic and desperate _please don’t kill my mom_ ; try _helplessness_ and _abhorrence_ and **_rage_** , a rage that was too big, too raw, too shriekingly agonising to hold inside. His skin was splitting at the seams, his veins charred black by lightning, he wanted to drop to his knees and scream and he wanted to cut Valentine’s heart out: _I hate you, I hate you I hate you **I hate you!**_ Faster and faster and faster, not cold and clean but hot and bright, searing, screaming, snarling as he struck and struck and struck. Jace was faster, smoother, wind and smoke to Simon’s rockslide and Simon barely touched him, couldn’t catch him and the frustration only sent him further and further away from words, from the world, from time, further and further out of his body’s way.

   He watched Jace. No – he _mirrored_ Jace, mimicked him, saw what the blond did and absorbed it and sent it back. Hold your spine like this; angle the strike like this; chin, eyes, sweep of your arm, weight spread evenly on the balls of your feet so you can lunge in and dart back on an instant’s notice. Instinct and even mimicry was no substitute for practise and training, Simon understood that bone-deep, knew his was only a flawed reflection of Jace’s skill, and yet –

   And yet.

   And yet he made himself a mirror, an empty glass half-full of hate, let go and _moved_ and the anger, God, the anger – it was like a pure note struck on silver, a perfect chord, it was breath and song and _power_. Elemental, unstoppable, a river, an avalanche, a storm, Jace’s fist and the flat of Rachiel’s blade hit him again and again but less often the longer the duel went on. Seconds were hours, minutes were days, and there was no pattern, Jace’s attacks were pure chaos until they weren’t, until it clicked, until Simon saw it like a two mirrors facing each other, reflecting each other into eternity. Act and react, push and pull and drive, frostburn-light splintering off their seraph blades and in their eyes and _I hate you_ , _mom, give her back don’t **hurt** her! _

   He was going to scream, going to burst, going to break, he was a hollow thing about to collapse in on itself and he was too full to survive, a bomb ticking down and a grenade kissing its pin goodbye and he couldn’t take it, the power felt so good but he couldn’t _take_ it, _I hate you I hate you I hate you give her **back** , give her BACK!_

_If you hurt her –_

_If you have hurt my mom I will never stop –_

_I will give up music and dedicate everything to Simiel –_

_I will train –_

_And learn –_

_And hunt you down if it takes fifty years –_

_And I will **RIP YOU APART!**_

   It burst out of him in a roar, an earthquake-snarl like a screamer song and inside Simon’s head there was a shriek like nails on a chalkboard times a thousand. The mirror he had made of himself shattered, and Simon stumbled, gasping, gut-punched somewhere far deeper than his stomach.

   Jace pulled his blow instantly, his free hand catching Simon’s wrist, the one that held Simiel. “What’s wrong?”

   “I – ” Simon’s bones had turned to water. “I have to sit down.”

   Worried now, Jace helped him sit, taking Simiel from Simon’s fingers before he could drop it. Simon barely noticed relinquishing the blade. He was shaking. It felt like something vital inside him had come loose from its mooring, his liver or lungs like stones rattling in an empty box.

   “Simon?” Jace’s palm cupped Simon’s jaw. “Talk to me.”

   “I’m not sure how,” Simon said numbly. “I – that was – ” He thought he might be sick. He had never been a violent person. Not like that. He could still taste the violent exultation of the power that had run through him, lighting him up like a walking talking sun; the vicious _yes_ -ness at the thought of ripping another human being into bloody shreds. It had felt so good. So _right._ If Valentine had been in front of him in that moment –

   He had no problem with killing the man who’d kidnapped Jocelyn. If that proved necessary then he would do it, and he hoped that he wouldn’t hesitate. He would put evil down like a rabid dog, quick and clean.

   But to _glory_ in it – a bullet to the brain was one thing, but ripping – tearing – that was something else. Something _sick_.

   The thought of it had been _so good_.

   “I wanted to kill,” he confessed softly. “Valentine. I wanted to find him and kill him. Rip him into pieces. And it felt – it felt like a song,” he finished helplessly, not knowing how else to say it. It sounded stupid and inane but his mind refused to offer up any other comparisons. _Perfect. Right, the way only music can be._

   _No,_ he thought suddenly, with a flicker of nausea. _Perfect like a kiss._ Like black velvet and firelight on bare skin. Like the most natural thing in the world, as if slaughter was as good and right as kissing Jace.

   He looked up at the blond. “You said Shadowhunters are bred for this,” he whispered. “Is this what you meant?”

   _Not human._ Simon wasn’t sure if he believed the Shadowhunter creation story, couldn’t quite accept that there was angel blood in his veins. That was – that was just insane, and too big for his mind to grasp. He hadn’t had a chance yet to sit down and think about what the existence of Nephilim meant about angels and Heaven and God, but when he did his brain was probably going to explode.

   But putting that enormous metaphysical question aside for a minute – whatever was running through his veins, it wasn’t human blood. And up till now Simon had thought that was weird but also pretty freaking cool, in a very _Harry Potter_ -esque way. _Y’er a wizard, Harry._

   Except – except that all myths had a grain of truth in them somewhere. The Shadowhunter myth was that an angel had created them; whether that was literally true or not, angels were – terrible. He thought of that line from _The Prophecy_ again: _‘Whenever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel. Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?’_

   _That_ was what was inside him. Literally, or as a metaphor for something humans hadn’t had words for a thousand years ago – something that might be even worse. The runes in his dream, the music that had taken him over this morning, the murderous rage just now – suddenly being a wizard was more than snowy owls and flying broomsticks; he felt like Harry being told that only dark wizards spoke Parseltongue.

   But Jace shook his head. “We’re not monsters, Simon. We kill the monsters.”

   As simple and perfect as a solved equation.

   “That’s what we’ve been bred for. To be the best possible guardians of our world.” Jace tapped his fingertip against Simon’s forehead, gently. “Part of that is in here. The skill and language centres in our brains are bigger than they are in mundanes. _They_ learn quickly while they’re young, but we can keep learning forever. That’s what you started doing a minute ago – you were mimicking me the way a child copies its parents when it’s learning to walk. Only faster.”

   His fingertip slid under Simon’s chin, tipping his face up to Jace’s. “That ability comes from your Shadowhunter blood,” the blond said softly, his eyes burning. “But you’re still human, and wanting revenge – that’s part of being human.”

   Simon didn’t say anything for a minute. “Do you think that because it’s true,” he asked finally, quietly, “or because if it’s not, that makes you a monster too?”

   Jace’s expression didn’t flicker. “Because it’s true,” he said without hesitation. He leaned in, but Simon’s hand shot up, catching Jace’s shoulder.

   “Don’t distract me with kisses.” Simon bit back his anger, kept his voice low and controlled, because everyone made mistakes. It was when your boyfr – your _erastes_ kept making the _same_ mistakes, over and over, that there was a problem. But the first one was free. “I’m not one of your nothing-girls that’ll swoon whenever you bat your eyelashes. If – if something I say makes you uncomfortable, then _tell me_. Don’t brush it off and try to distract me. Don’t brush _me_ off. That – that is a seriously crap relationship protocol. Okay?”

   Jace’s eyes were wide; he looked so stunned that Simon genuinely wondered if anyone had ever rejected him before.

   “Okay?” Simon prodded.

   Jace nodded slowly.

   “Good.” Simon let go of Jace’s shoulder and sighed. “Revenge is not a cool thing. Just look at what it did to the Winchesters. John – mmf!”

   Jace’s lips came down on his, hard and urgent. Simon’s indignation dissolved like a dandelion in the wind, unable to resist the storm in Jace; the blond’s hands tangled themselves in Simon’s hair, his tongue sweeping into Simon’s mouth hungrily, desperately, without finesse. It didn’t matter; it was _Jace_ , who was so insanely sexy that he could probably turn a nun to sin just by flashing his ankles at her, and he kissed Simon until the singer couldn’t breathe.

   Jace’s lips left his at last, but he didn’t go far. He was so close that Simon could taste his breath, feel his short, hard pants washing over Simon’s lips, slipping between them and down his throat. Into his lungs, and into his blood. “You’re incredible,” Jace whispered, and Simon’s heart stuttered at the fervency in his voice, the almost painful _ache_ in it.

   “Of course I am,” he said flippantly, to cover his – it felt like shock, but sweeter, sharper. As if the floor had vanished from beneath his feet, but instead of falling he flew. “Did you only just realise? Clearly you’re blind, we should get your eyes checked.”

   Jace laughed into another kiss.

   “Come on,” he said after, getting to his feet and pulling Simon up after him. “Let’s see if you can really hit me this time.”

*

   He couldn’t.

   They went at it for almost an hour, but Simon couldn’t make himself slip into the ninja mindspace again.

   “It’s called a battle trance, it’s a sign of Raziel’s blessing, _it has nothing to do with ninjas._ ”

   Also Jace was a spoilsport who did not appreciate the awesomeness of ninjas.

   But he was a spoilsport who was clearly growing concerned as Simon kept stumbling. Simon grit his teeth and tried – tried to make the sideways step out of reality, to go through the door in his head that he’d opened twice now – maybe three times, if killing the Ravener counted. Time and time again, as the flat of Rachiel’s blade smacked against his shoulders, his chest, his sides and arms, Simon pushed himself right up to the doorway. Twice he even fell through it.

   For an instant. Because the tarry black rage he’d felt before was waiting for him on the other side, sticky and burning and poisonous, and he recoiled from it instinctively, without thinking, the way your body whipped your hand off a hot stovetop before your brain felt the heat. The difference was that you could force yourself to hold your hand on the stove, if you were stupid enough and stubborn enough and wanted to burn. But trying to give himself up to the ninja mindspace, and the sick fury that came with it, was like...like willingly opening yourself up to demonic possession.

   Simon couldn’t do it.

   _I don’t want to be that. I am_ not _that!_

   Without the trance, though, Simon was useless. He just wasn’t fast enough to meet Jace on equal terms; and even if he had been, he could no longer mirror Jace’s training. Without it, Simon was just a gamer-cum-singer, with no martial experience _at all_.

   Unless Halo 2 counted. But Simon was pretty sure that it didn’t.

   He should have felt useless, humiliated, ashamed that he couldn’t keep up. No doubt Alec would have called him a disgrace to his Shadowhunter blood, and told him again how Simon didn’t deserve Jace’s _armask_ _ō_. But none of those things flashed through his mind.

   Because he was watching Jace.

   It was too much of a cliché to claim that Jace moved like sex, but that was where Simon’s traitorous thoughts went. He blamed his teenage hormones, and also Jace’s ridiculous face. Mostly the face. Clearly, it was all the face’s fault. And also Jace’s arms, and the stark, sensual lines of the runes on Jace’s throat, just peeking out over the neck of his shirt. It was like one of those dotted _cut here_ lines on a kindergartener’s work project, only instead of the blunt plastic scissors it invited Simon’s tongue. _Lick here_ , and Simon wanted to lick it, wanted to bite his own Mark there. The red mark from the night before – or was that this morning? – had faded, but that was all right, Simon could replace it and do it _properly_ this time.

   It really shouldn’t have been sexual. Jace was smacking him with the flat of his seraph blade and Simon was embarrassingly bad at avoiding it, tired from trying to leap and duck and boiling under all the leather. But it wasn’t just the way that Jace looked like every demon hunter or mage knight from _years_ of Simon’s fantasies (except for his Dean Winchester phase, but he challenged anyone not to swoon for either one or the other of the Winchester boys, if not both) or even the way he moved; it was the fucking _focus_ that was doing Simon in. Jace watched Simon as if there was nothing else in the world, and Simon didn’t care if that was because Jace was thinking of sex too or if Shadowhunters were trained to ignore everything but their opponent/s in battle: the all-consuming _intensity_ in Jace’s eyes was making Simon hard, making him remember how it felt when that concentration was applied to kissing skin instead of trying to bruise it.

   Thank God the trousers weren’t leather. At least the cargo pants were loose...

   He wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed when Jace called a halt, and told him to put Simiel away. Mostly relieved, he decided. The Shadowhunter body armour had kept him from bruising, but it was _hot_ – and not, unfortunately, only in the sexy sense. Simon’s hair was plastered to his skull with sweat, and the skin-tight shirt felt clammy and damp against his skin beneath the vest and jacket. Even his hands were sweating under the gloves: Simon couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be in a real fight, outside in the New York summer.

   And Jace, the bastard, wasn’t even out of breath.

   “You shouldn’t be so perfect,” Simon told him, collapsing melodramatically onto a nearby training mat. “The gods don’t like that kind of thing.”

   “Which gods are we talking about?” Simon was staring up at the ceiling, so he couldn’t see Jace, but he could hear the blond moving around.

   “The Greek ones,” Simon decided. “They were always cursing people for being perfect.” He counted on his fingers. “Arachne: turned into a spider for her awesome weaving. Helen: too pretty, so they make her fall in love with some randomer and start the Trojan War. Akhilleus: also insanely hot, so Aphrodite turned him into a shark...”

   Jace dropped down beside Simon. Gracefully. Simon contemplated kicking him on principle and decided against it: Jace had enough energy to kick him back. “That one doesn’t sound so bad,” Jace said. “I liked sharks when I was younger.”

   “Yeah?” Simon turned his head. His boyfriend – _erastes_ – his _Jace_ was lying on his side, propped up on an elbow. “I preferred orcas, personally. _‘Let’s free Willy!’_ ” Jace raised an eyebrow. “No? No, wait, what am I saying, of course you haven’t watched it, you didn’t even know about _Lord of the Rings_ until I showed it to you – you were a _deprived child_ , you know that? _Deprived._ ”

   “Mmhm.” Jace’s eyes glittered. “You missed one, you know.”

   Simon frowned. “Missed one what?”

   “Your list.” Jace’s fingertips brushed the line of Simon’s jaw. Simon’s stomach went tight at the touch, and his dick hardened a little more.

   _List, list, list..._ Simon struggled to remember what they’d been talking about. “The Greek thing?” It was too hot in here. Simon wanted to get out of some of his layers, but he couldn’t bear to move.

   “Yes,” Jace murmured. “You’re forgetting Ganymede.” He leaned down, and in, and his lips traced the path his fingers had just marked and Simon hissed, his hand flying up and clenching in Jace’s hair. Jace bit Simon’s ear in revenge, gently. “The youth who was so beautiful,” he breathed, “that the king of the gods fell in love with him, and stole him away.”

   Simon tried not to shiver. Tried, and failed utterly. “You have a kidnapping kink thing going on, don’t you?” he managed hoarsely. “Note to self: make an appointment at the optician’s, and also find Jace a therapist.” He had no idea what was coming out of his mouth. He was wholly focussed on Jace’s. “So what happened? Did the guy explode like the golden shower girl?”

   The hot breath of Jace’s laughter caressed Simon’s neck. “You’re mixing up myths. Danae is the golden shower girl; Semele is the one who exploded.” With his nose, he nudged Simon’s chin up; Simon let his head fall back with something like a whimper, something deep in him shuddering and clenching tight as Jace’s teeth brushed over Simon’s throat. “But no. He didn’t explode.” It was too hot. It was too hot and the exhaustion of the work-out was rapidly dissolving into a molten kind of languor, one that pooled in Simon’s bones and in the pit of his stomach. Jace’s hair was soft between Simon’s fingers and his voice was satin-husky and Simon couldn’t move, Jace’s lips and teeth were on his throat and they were soft but they were steel, holding Simon in place as surely as chains.

   “Zeus took him as a lover,” Jace murmured, “and gave him eternal youth.” His hand found Simon’s thigh, a warm, solid weight through the cargo pants, and just like that the heavy, delicious indolence turned electric; Simon’s blood turned white and gold and hissing and he bit his tongue trying not to gasp, his free hand snapping up and grabbing at Jace’s shirt. God, Jace even _smelled_ good. They could bottle his sweat and sell it as a perfume, and that should have been a seriously gross thought but it really _wasn’t_. Simon wanted to lick him, bite him, _eat_ him. “He wove the stars to form Aquarius in Ganymede’s honour... The only one of his lovers he ever made a god.”

   Jace’s hand slid higher as he nipped delicately at Simon’s Adam’s apple. Simon jerked, gasping. “Is this a come-on line, are you trying to tell me your cock will make me immortal? Is that how you get girls? Because dude, that is – ”

   Jace bit down hard.

   “ – _seriously fucking brilliant_ , let’s test it _right now!”_

   The best camera in the world couldn’t have caught who moved first. Time froze, stuttered – and then they were mouth to mouth, stealing the other’s breath, Jace rolled and Simon pulled hard and the blond was on top of him, all long lean weight lighting fireworks in Simon’s brain. His legs fell open and they both groaned, hissed, snarled, molten-metal hot and urgency screamed at them, terminal, they’d die if they didn’t get it now, now, _now_. All the teasing, all the come-ons and the touches, the heated glances and the smirks; the desire that had been simmering for over an hour went up in flames, exploding, taking them with it. They tore at each other, quick hands gone stupid and clumsy, biting at lips, tongues, sharp and slick; Simon hooked his legs around Jace’s hips and they were bucking, grinding, so hard, so _hot_ , Simon wanted to scream with it, would kill something if Jace didn’t lose the clothes in the next five seconds: they shoved Jace’s jacket off, clawed Simon’s onto the floor and threw his gloves metres away, and there was never a good reason for groin-guards, they were evil torture, he needed to feel Jace’s arousal like an addict craving a hit.

   Jace reared up, breaking the kiss, and Simon growled a protest until he saw the blond pulling his shirt up and over his head. Simon pushed himself up, following him, kissing and biting his way over Jace’s collarbone, marking him, _mine_ , Jace’s hissed gasps dropping into the pit of his stomach like hot coals. Jace’s fingers raked through Simon’s hair and Simon caught Jace’s nipple between his teeth, raking his nails over Jace’s smooth back; his hips jerked at Jace’s low groan of pleasure, wanting more, _needing_ to hear that again. When Jace wrenched Simon’s head back Simon caught a glimpse of his face, and it was like looking into a mirror, seeing his own hunger reflected back at him, savage and wild – just a glimpse before Jace shoved him down onto his back again, crushed their mouths together and Simon tasted bloody copper and sucked it off Jace’s lip, his cock aching at the taste of it, at the sound Jace made.

   _Fuck yes._ Without thinking Simon flipped them, twisting and throwing his weight with his hip and Jesus fucking Christ it was a thrill, feeling Jace’s body all spread out under his, under him, but there were too many damned _clothes_. “Get me out of these,” he demanded hoarsely, breaking away from Jace’s lips to bite his neck, his shoulder. “Come on, come _on,_ ” as Jace hurried to obey, clawing at Simon’s vest, getting in each other’s way as Simon worked at Jace’s zipper but unable to stop, unable to pull away even to undress. Jace’s skin was warm, Simon tasted sweat and bit him, over and over, just for the noise Jace made when he did. The vest came open and they pushed it over Simon’s shoulders hurriedly, and then the shirt, and then Simon shoved his hand down Jace’s opened trousers and Jace gasped, arching like a bow –

   Suddenly Simon was on his back again and there, now, he had no problem slipping into the ninja headspace this time. Faster than light the two of them moved, blinding heat, skin on skin, wrestling for the top, for dominance, snarling like animals and holy smokes, Batman, it felt better than anything, Jace’s golden eyes gone bronze with lust and his lips red and swollen, his face twisted up with hunger, with an almost scandalised outrage that Simon was even _trying_ to put Jace on the bottom, but – but Christ on a pogo stick, Simon wanted that. Fought for it: he wanted to pin Jace flat and make him come undone, make that cocky, ever-smirking mouth go soft and slack with bliss. Jace was always so damned in control and Simon wanted to _wreck_ him, wanted to make him _fucking lose it –_

   And the fact that Jace fought him tooth and nail just made it better; they clashed like titans, skin breaking under nails and mouths bruising and it just built and built, skin-hands-lips, both of them refusing to submit, to go down, to be the one consumed. They both wanted to devour the other, and it was working, they were burning up, dissolving into white fire and diamond-dust ashes, stripped down to lightning and magma, starving, famished, hearts racing like it was the end of the world and there were only seconds to live-taste-touch. It was a supervolcano of need and heat, an apocalypse, twisting tighter and tighter, higher and hotter, Simon was a heartbeat away from coming in his pants and his back was scored with the marks of Jace’s nails, his lips sore and bloodied, and he shoved his hand against Jace’s stomach and slammed him down, held him there. Before Jace could turn the tables again Simon pushed his other hand into the blond’s pants, slipping past the cotton boxers as if they weren’t there and curling his fingers around the velvety hardness of Jace’s cock.

   It throbbed against his palm, and Simon smirked. Moving his hand from Jace’s abdomen to his hair, he traced the tip of his tongue over the seam of Jace’s lips, drinking in his frenzied moan.

   “Stay,” he purred playfully, rubbing his thumb over the slick head. His mouth watered, and he swallowed. “Just – _stay_.”

   Jace’s voice was rough, like the length of a blade dragging down skin. “What are you – ” The words dissolved into a shuddery breath as Simon shimmied down, because no male past puberty could be confused as to what that meant. The angle was awful, Simon had to let go of Jace’s cock, settling between Jace’s thighs and pulling the blond’s pants down over his hips. Jace helped, breathing hard, lifting his hips to make it easier and his pupils were blown, the bronze almost completely eclipsed by dark, hungry black.

   Simon grinned, rocking back on his heels to draw the trousers over Jace’s knees. _You’re halfway to wrecked already, aren’t you?_

   And then the pants were gone, and Jace was lying there in nothing but his boxers, a wet spot darkening the cotton, and for a moment Simon couldn’t do anything but stare. The blond was pushed up on one elbow, watching Simon hungrily, completely unselfconscious. For years Simon had fantasised about the heroes in the mangas he read, the wizards and the vampire hunters – he’d had a huge crush on Aragorn, and Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing had a special place on his bedroom wall. He’d imagined, in detail, a variety of scenarios in which the Winchester brothers came to Brooklyn and made Simon the filling in their sex sandwich – the Latin featured heavily.

   But – even though it kind of felt like blasphemy to think it – Jace was a million times sexier than the Supernatural boys. His scars, the silvery shadows of past runes, the stark calligraphy of active, permanent ones...

   He cocked one blond eyebrow under the scrutiny, and Simon growled, sharply annoyed by Jace’s veneer of cool confidence, reminded all at once of his plan to shatter Jace into pieces. Without a word of warning, he leaned his hands on Jace’s thighs, smugly satisfied by the blond’s sharp intake of breath. _Not so cocky now, are you?_ Simon thought, leaning down over Jace’s body. He pressed his lips to the bulge of Jace’s cock through his underwear, heard Jace hiss over the pounding in his own ears. 

   _God I want you._

   “Simon...” Jace rolled his hips against Simon’s mouth and Simon took that as his cue, slid his lips down the length of Jace’s cock with a low, hungry purr. He brushed up and down teasingly, breathing in the smell of him, but he didn’t have the patience to tease Jace for long; his own dick was an iron bar between his legs and he pulled Jace’s underwear down and away, gracelessly. Jace didn’t seem to mind; his gorgeous cock curved up against his belly, flushed and wet at the tip, and they were both panting and Simon wanted it in his throat yesterday.

   “Jace,” Simon murmured back. He almost didn’t recognise his voice. “I take it you don’t want me to stop?” His stomach was knotted up with lust. He desperately wanted to push his hand into his pants and get off; it wouldn’t take much. He was still wearing the vambraces, but he couldn’t bear the delay of taking them off. “Now would be a good time to tell me if you do.”

   “By the Angel, I don’t want you to stop,” Jace breathed. He was holding himself still, but it was the kind of stillness that looked like he was vibrating – a tight, tense stillness. Simon laughed breathlessly and dipped his head, touched his lips to the base of Jace’s cock, and that stillness shattered; Jace jerked, his hand flying into Simon’s hair with a gasp. “Simon!” he hissed.

   “Jace,” Simon replied playfully. He slid spit onto his tongue and traced a wet ribbon up the length of Jace’s cock, and inside he was twisting, shaking, his mind spinning apart and fracturing at the taste, the scent, the silky-soft skin stretched taut over Jace’s arousal. The quick, frantic pants spilling out of Jace’s mouth, and Simon was definitely not taking off his glasses, not with _that_ look on Jace’s face – dark, and desperate, stunned and starving. Simon wanted that expression fixed in his memory.

   Stroking his hands down to Jace’s hipbones, Simon leaned his weight there – and closed his mouth around the head of Jace’s cock.

   Simon didn’t have a name for the noise Jace made, low and choked in his throat, but his fingers tightened in Simon’s hair and Simon’s hips stuttered, a wave of wet heat sweeping through him from skull to toes.

   _Fuck..._

   Sucking cock was _awesome_. Simon hadn’t realised that before he’d done it – it had seemed potentially gross and probably awkward. What did you do with your teeth? Your tongue? What if the other guy wasn’t all that clean, and did you swallow or choke or what when he came? But once you had the mechanics down, it was this huge rush. Contrary to popular thinking there was nothing submissive about it (you had the most vulnerable part of a man’s anatomy between your teeth, and _you_ were somehow submissive? Um, _no_ – human teeth could bite through bone if necessary; whoever was doing the sucking was most definitely the one in control). And giving someone that much pleasure – taking them apart, wringing those _sounds_ out of them? There was nothing like it.

   He sucked, and swallowed, nervously-hungrily and Jace’s hipbones were perfect, they fit into Simon’s palms like puzzle-pieces and it was like being in heat, a craving, a damn _compulsion_. It was _Jace_ and Simon was breaking open and he couldn’t draw this out, needed, _now_ ; he opened his mouth wider and dropped down as far as he could, taking Jace almost to the root all at once, full and solid, clean skin and sweat and Jace –

   Jace cried out, jack-knifing as if he’d been electrocuted, pleasure like a bullet and Simon smirked around the thickness, around the searing hot stab wound in his stomach. Jace tried to move his hips and Simon pressed down harder and the blond _whimpered_ – Simon almost came then and there, both of Jace’s hands in Simon’s hair now, pressing him down, urging him on, his hips making aborted little jerks, trying to get more, deeper, something, _anything_ – Simon remembered just how it felt to be restrained with that wet heat around your dick.

   He sucked, thrilling at holding Jace down, making him take it. His skin felt hot and tight, and he started bobbing his head – just a little, and slowly at first, savouring it, revelling in Jace’s groans and breathy pants, the way his body tried to writhe, tried to _move_. But Simon refused to let him, used his weight to hold Jace still, keep him pinned as Simon’s lips slid up and down an inch or two, stroking his tongue along the length of the cock. Jace’s breathing grew louder, his grip on Simon’s hair tightening – not rough, not demanding, not yet, but something about the tension in his fingers made Simon shiver with excitement.

   “Seraphs, Simon,” Jace gasped, and Simon only hummed, wringing another choked cry from Jace’s unprepared throat. Blindsiding Jace with pleasure was quickly becoming an addiction. “You Hellspawn, let me _move!”_

   Simon swallowed, and blowjobs were always messy, there was no way to keep your chin from getting covered in spit, but there was also, also the _hunger_ , wanting more, that – it wasn’t a hollowness, he wasn’t empty, but it was _Jace_ and Simon wanted him _so badly_. He wanted to _get off_ so badly, and having Jace’s dick in his mouth was only making that worse _(better)_ , it was this deep, hot ache and his own hips were rolling a little, tiny jerks that he couldn’t quite help. He drew his teeth gently over Jace as he slid up almost to the tip and did it again for the sound Jace made; he sucked harder, stroking, teasing, Jace’s groans growing more and more desperate as Simon bobbed his head more quickly. It was easy when you got into the rhythm of it, the trick was to breathe through your nose and avoid your gag reflex, and it was fine, it was good, it was really, _really_ fucking good, awesome, epic. He flicked a glance up at Jace and moaned around Jace’s cock, unable to help himself. Jace’s expression was a cocktail of awe and bliss and need and _mine_ and desperate urgency, and _oh god, I will actually fucking come if I don’t figure out how not to –_

   But he couldn’t figure out how not to, and didn’t want to – he was so fucking ready to come, and he let go of Jace’s hip to reach up and lay his hand over Jace’s, in Simon’s hair. He urged Jace to grip harder, to push, and Jace got it instantly and _whimpered_ , again, at the realisation of what Simon wanted him to do. He bucked hard, gasping, and Simon only had one hand holding him down and it wasn’t quite enough and Jace pulled him, pushed him, manhandled him not-quite-roughly and Simon groaned, going easily as Jace fucked his mouth. Hurriedly Simon fumbled one-handedly with his combats, got them open and shoved them and the crotch guard sewn into them down around his knees, desperate as his boxers followed, his whole body lighting up as he _finally_ got his hand around his cock and Jace in his mouth, his throat, thrusting desperately, all his expert grace dissolved into crude need and it was the hottest thing Simon had _ever seen_. He jerked himself off frantically and Jace was saying his name, low and fervent and “Simon, Raziel damn you _Simon,_ ” and Simon came everywhere.

   He did not bite down, or choke, but his muffled moan vibrated around Jace’s cock and the blond gave a soft cry, raw and surprised and ripped out of him still bleeding. He followed Simon over the edge just a few seconds later, and come tasted _disgusting_ , anyone who said otherwise was a lying liar who lied, but Simon swallowed almost all of it anyway, boneless and trembling.

   There was something really, really dirty and hot about feeling your lover’s come pool in your stomach.

   He realised, belatedly, that he hadn’t moved, that he still had his lips wrapped around Jace’s cock. Jace was panting – they both were, but Jace seemed louder – and stroking gently through Simon’s hair. Swallowing again, Simon released the blond’s spit-slick cock to lie against his thigh, straightening up. His lips felt a little stretched, but that was unsurprising.

   He made to brush the back of his hand over his mouth and his wet chin, but Jace suddenly sat up, catching Simon’s wrist. His eyes were still dark, but the desperate tautness was gone as he lazily swiped his thumb through the mess on Simon’s chin, and brought it to his own mouth.

   Instantly his face twisted with disgust. “That tastes _awful!_ ”

   Simon couldn’t help it: he laughed, and kissed the _moue_ of distaste. “Oh, well, in that case I guess we’d better not do it again,” he teased, wiping off his face. And tucking himself back in, because Jace was naked and gorgeous, but Simon had his pants around his knees and his dick hanging out, and that was not a good look for anybody.

   “That,” Jace said archly, “will not be necessary. It’s not _that_ bad.”

   “Says the guy who wasn’t doing the sucking,” Simon replied wryly, but he was grinning.

   Jace kissed him. The urgency was gone now, and the kiss was slow, deep and lazy. Simon parted his lips, letting Jace taste himself in Simon’s mouth. The pressure of his lips on Simon’s suggested that despite the taste, Jace liked it, and Simon grinned again. “You’ll have to teach me how to return the favour,” Jace murmured when they parted.

   Simon’s stomach lurched. “It’ll be my pleasure,” he answered, a little hoarse. Jace smirked at him.

   Simon had made something of a mess, but it was nothing that couldn’t be wiped up with his shirt. His own clothes – shirt and jeans, instead of the Shadowhunter gear – were still in the other room, and he dressed back in those. Jace didn’t seem worried about anyone coming in and finding them; he lounged on Simon’s leather jacket like a Renaissance model, watching Simon dress with the sated laziness of a well-fed panther, a cat-like smile on his lips.

   “You know, in Saudi Arabia, the morality police can fine and punish you for being too good-looking,” Simon told him. “I’m pretty sure they’d put _you_ in jail and throw away the key.”

   “That is a bizarre compliment, even for you, but I will take it.” Jace stretched, hedonistic and sinful. Simon was still warm and aching from his orgasm, but he couldn’t help looking, his eyes licking over the perfect lines of Jace’s body. Jace caught him looking, and he smiled, reaching out a hand to beckon Simon closer. Simon went, and let Jace tug him down to the floor and into another soft, lazy kiss. Despite the bitter aftertaste on his tongue, it was sweet. “Thank you,” Jace said softly.

   Simon knew he meant for more than the compliment. “You’re welcome.” He ran his hand over Jace’s chest. Simiel, back in the _armask_ _ō_ cuff, caught the light and sparkled. There was a new depth to this thing between them now, unspoken and delicate, but warm. A new intimacy. It settled over them like silk. “I promise, you weren’t the only one who enjoyed it.”

   Jace’s eyes gleamed, a flicker of heat. “I noticed.”

   Simon grinned, then glanced over at the pile of Shadowhunter gear. “Should I put all that away?”

   “No, it’s yours now. We’ll assign you your own room and you can put everything in your wardrobe.” Jace paused. “That is, if you’re going to stay here.”

   A week, Simon mused, should not be long enough to be able to read the hesitation behind Jace’s breezy tone. And yet he could, caught the whisper of uncertainty like a firefly alighting gently in his palm. Fragile and precious. “I think I might,” he said slowly. He would be closer to the action here, and Clary’s mom couldn’t put him up forever. He raised his hand and cupped Jace’s cheek softly. And he could work on smoothing that uncertainty away.

   _‘To love is to destroy, and to be loved is to be the one destroyed...’_ He brushed his lips over Jace’s. _I’ll prove you wrong. Even if we only have ten minutes together, I’m going to prove you wrong, Jace._

   “But that means I need to do laundry,” he added.

   “Mm, your shirt needs a wash,” Jace agreed, a playful glint in his eyes as they both glanced towards the shirt Simon had used to clean up the mess.

   “Well, how about you get dressed, and show me where your washing machine is?”

   “Get dressed?” Jace stretched out on his stomach, playfully swinging his legs in the air. “Surely it’s a crime to cover up this body?”

   Simon swatted him hard on the ass, and smirked at Jace’s yelp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not explaining the names of Simon’s new blades; you’ll find out when he does, which should be in the next chapter.
> 
> Erastes and eromenos are ancient Greek terms, more or less translating as top and bottom. The erastes was typically the older, more dominant partner, and the eromenos was the younger and more typically submissive. But they also translate as lover and beloved, which is mostly the sense in which Jace uses them.
> 
> Shudō is a Japanese term, more or less the samurai version of ancient Greek pedastry – specifically, the bond between a master samurai and his student, who were also lovers. Although from my research it’s significantly less dodgy than the Greek version. Jace is making a bit of a joke because he and Simon are lovers and Jace is teaching Simon the same kind of martial skills the samurai would have taught his student.
> 
> Harpagmos is from ancient Crete. For the Cretans, it was a ritual/ceremony in which a would-be erastes ritually kidnapped a young man (with the prior consent and warning of the friends and family) and took him away to the wilderness for a few months, where they became lovers and hunted and trained with the elder man’s cadre of warriors. At the end of the harpagmos the young man could reject or accept his ‘kidnapper’s advances, at which point he would be known as the elder’s parastathentes – literally, lovers who stand together/fight together.  
> It has a slightly different meaning for Shadowhunters, but you won’t need to worry about that for a while...


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the last chapter, really, but it was long enough to stand on its own. Enjoy!

   Remembering what Jace had said about there being no electricity in Idris, Simon had been a little worried that Shadowhunters did their laundry in copper pots with lye and a laundry paddle. But no, apparently there was no problem putting electricity in the Institute. There was a whole room filled with industrial sized washing machines and dryers, for those rare occasions when the Institute was full of visiting Nephilim.

   “But how do you clean the leather?” Simon asked, poking at the dial for one of the machines’ settings. There were a bunch of strange symbols on it, ones he didn’t recognise as the pictorials for cotton- or silk-washes.

   Jace, amused, helped him, twisting the dial without hesitation to select a setting. “There’s a brownie cleaning service that takes care of the gear for us. Here, this one’s for normal clothes.” He waited while Simon shovelled in his mundane shirts and jeans. “Although all of our hunting gear _is_ actually machine washable. The brownies just do a better job.”

   Simon looked at him sharply, but Jace’s expression was so even that he couldn’t tell whether the blond was joking or not. “Machine washable, huh?”

   “Mmhm.” Jace examined his fingernails.

   “Good to know.”

   Under Jace’s direction, Simon put everything in and switched it all on. At least only the shirt from his gear needed cleaning, and they didn’t need to fuss with the leather or plated vest.

   “Now what?” Simon asked as they left the room.

   Jace shrugged. “Whatever you want. The day is ours. Until Hodge finds something, we have no leads to follow, no work to do.”

   _No leads to follow._ Simon felt a stab of guilt; distracted by Jace’s kisses, he’d almost forgotten about Jocelyn. “Couldn’t we go out, find someone to talk to?”

   But Jace shook his head. “It’s too early.” He grinned, turned and caught Simon’s chin in his fingers. “The Shadow World is a nocturnal world, little mundane,” he murmured.

   Simon shivered, feeling heat spark and catch in the pit of his stomach. One of these days he was going to have to convince Jace to talk dirty to him. That accent... _Mundane_. Simon couldn’t even be annoyed by it, not with the way Jace’s lips shaped the word. “Thought I was a Nephilim now, like you?”

   Jace snorted. “There are no others like me.” He nipped Simon’s lip, and Simon was too distracted by Jace inadvertently quoting Jaime Lannister to do anything but gasp at the sting. “Why don’t we find you a room? Get you settled in, at last?”

   “I suppose that’s a good place to start...”

   Jace smirked, and let him go.

   There wasn’t much moving in to do. All Simon owned in the world currently fit in a single rucksack; he dropped it on the bed in the room next to Jace’s and was at a loss for what to do next. Jace, lounging in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, made no suggestions: he only watched, his eyes cat-like in their inscrutability, a small smile curving his lips.

   “What?” Simon asked. Restlessly, he opened the bag and started putting things away. Most of his clothes were being washed, but there was a shirt or two that found a place in the chest of drawers. The new seraph blades, at least, were easy to find a place for; Jace had given him a more unobtrusive belt that fit through the loops of his jeans, with subtle notches that the dowels could be slipped into invisibly, without giving away the gleam of crystal.

   Simiel was impossible to miss, but the others were invisible, and more dangerous because of it, unbonded or no. No one would see them coming.

   Jace’s smile widened as Simon arranged his iPad and notebook on the bedside table. “I find myself enjoying the sight of you staking your territory,” he said softly.

   Simon paused mid-motion. “This is another of those Shadowhunter things, isn’t it?” He’d noticed before that Shadowhunters were big on possession – making claims, publically branding their loved ones. Simiel was one such, bright and crystalline on his wrist, circled by the same stars that marked Jace’s ring... Glancing up at Jace, Simon thought on his _erastes_ ’ words, when he’d offered the cuff and explained what it meant to wear it: _‘It means that you’re mine, and I’m yours.’_

 _You’re mine too, Wayland_. _This claim of yours goes both ways._

   “Once a room is occupied, none may enter without the resident’s permission,” Jace confirmed. His eyes gleamed. “Just as no one can cross the threshold of your house without invitation.”

   Simon understood at once. Jace liked the sense of permanence, liked Simon carving out a place for himself because it implied that Simon would stay in it – maybe for quite a while.

   “And yet you didn’t bat an eye at me being in your room earlier,” he murmured, thinking it through. The lithe panther waiting behind Jace’s eyes, written into the liquid grace with which he moved, had been only too happy to allow Simon into his territory.

   “Sorry?”

   A grin tugged at the corners of Simon’s lips. “Nothing.” He tilted his head. “So basically you’re telling me that you’re a vampire.”

   “ _Excuse me?_ ”

   “You need an invitation to come in!” Simon crowed, laughing at Jace’s scandalised expression.

   “Vampires do _not_ need to be invited to enter a place,” Jace said. “That’s just a myth.”

   “Mmhm.” Simon grinned. He raised his hands to his mouth and made fangs with his fingers. “Grr.”

   “I am _not_ a vampire.”

   “ _Grr._ ”

   Jace’s lips were twitching. “You are _impossible.”_

_“Grrrrrrrrrr.”_

   Jace threw up his hands. “Fine! I’ll be next door when you recover your sanity.”

   “You don’t vant to suck my blood?” Simon called after him, in a bad Transylvanian accent almost lost in his laughter. Jace was smiling as he disappeared into the hallway, and a few seconds later Simon heard Jace’s door open and close behind him.

   Simon felt light, as if all his bones had been filled with helium. A subtle weight he hadn’t realised he was carrying had dissolved in their playfulness like a pearl in wine, and he wanted to keep laughing, wanted to move. A glittering restlessness tugged him to the bed, and he threw himself down, snatching up his notebook and a pen and opening to an empty page.

   He stared at it, strangely breathless, and then called Clary.

   “So Jace and I are together now,” he told her when she picked up. “And also, he is not a vampire. Probably.”

   “So he doesn’t vant to suck your blood?”

   “See, this is why I love you!” Simon said. “You don’t ask stupid questions, you just give me the Count Chocula accent and run with it.”

   “I live to serve. Congrats, by the way. Took the two of you long enough.”

   Simon paused. “...Yeah, I’ve got nothing,” he confessed. “There was some confusion. Of the epically stupid variety. He and Alec were never together, by the way,” he added.

   “I figured something like that must have been the case. You’re not a homewrecker.” Simon heard typing. “How’s Alec taking it? Does he know yet?”

   Simon sighed, rolling onto his back. “Not that well,” he admitted. “He is not my biggest fan.”

   “Any particular reason? Or is it just because you hooked up with the guy he likes?”

   “We did not ‘hook up’,” Simon corrected archly. “We share a profound bond.”

   He could hear her grin. “Uh huh.”

   Simon stared at the ceiling without seeing it. “I think some of it’s jealousy,” he said slowly, thinking back over his interactions with Alec. “But some of it’s because I’m a guy. I think he’s worried that Jace is going to get in trouble for being with me.”

   “And will he?”

   “I don’t know. The Clave are a bunch of douchebags, but...I really don’t know enough about them. Apparently Shadowhunters are big on baby-making, and obviously I don’t have the equipment for that.”

   Clary choked. “Isn’t it a little soon to be thinking about that kind of thing?!”

   Simon blinked. “I just said that we’re _not_ having kids!” he protested. “I’m not exactly getting fitted for a wedding dress!” He guiltily avoided looking at Simiel. He knew the _armaskō_ _blade symbolised more than a simple hook-up. Less than a ring, but maybe...Maybe not much less._

   “I’m glad to hear it. You’d look awful in a dress.”

   “Thanks,” he said dryly.

   “You’re welcome,” Clary chirped, and he didn’t need to see her to know she was smirking. But then her voice turned serious. “You really like this guy, don’t you?”

   Simon hesitated, but not for long. “Yeah, Lewis. I really, really do.” He smiled, fondness a candleflame sheltered by his breastbone. “He’s an arrogant git who’s never even seen a comic book and he doesn’t know who Harry Potter is, but he’s...” The Ravener. The Forsaken. The way he’d gone after the vampires who’d taken Clary without a second’s hesitation. The way he’d laughed as the motorcycle plunged towards the ground; his scandalised outrage watching _Twilight_ ; the way he kissed and the way he moved and the way he gave Simon armour instead of ordering him out of danger. Simon closed his eyes, feeling something catch in his throat. “He’s incredible,” he said softly. “He really...God, Clary.”

   “Oh, Fray.” Clary was quiet. “You’ve got it _bad_.” Her voice was gentle, and Simon heard what she didn’t say: that he was falling so hard, so fast – maybe too hard, and too fast. “Don’t let him break your heart, okay?”

   There was a lump in his throat. “I’ll do my best,” he said thickly.

   “You do that.” Clary exhaled. “Maybe you should talk to Alec about the Clave. If you don’t want to ask Jace. It would be – you should know what you’re getting into.”

   ‘ _Do you have_ _any idea_ _what it means to wear that? What it means that he gave it to you, or what the Clave will do when they find out?’_

   “I’m not sure he’ll want to talk to me,” Simon said carefully.

   “Maybe not. But you said he’s Jace’s best friend, right? That means you guys are going to have to work things out eventually. And if he’s really worried about the Clave – if there’s a good reason to be worried – then you need to know, Simon.” She paused. When she spoke again, there was a strain to her voice, an almost-tremble that he’d never heard before. “Their world eats people up and spits them out, Fray,” and he knew she was remembering the vampires, the Dumort, how they’d had to cut their way out. “Valentine’s already out to get you. Don’t give anybody else a reason to gun for you, okay?”

   _It’s worth it._ The words sprang to mind instantly, but he bit down on them, his heart pounding. Worth dying for? No, that was stupid, that was – this was – it was typical teenage melodrama, hormones and desire frying his brain. He wouldn’t risk his life for someone he’d known for a week. That was insanity.

   _Except that you already have._ He hadn’t run from the Forsaken when Jace ordered him to, had he? He’d stayed, and risked death to save Jace, and never thought twice. Hadn’t thought at all, had just _done_ it because he couldn’t have done otherwise. And that was before he’d even known Jace’s surname.

   _He’s worth it._

    “I’ll talk to Alec,” he said quietly, shaken by the realisation. _Would I really die for him? To be with him?_ He told himself not to be overdramatic, that the Clave were seriously unlikely to kill him. But the quiet certainty that settled in his chest didn’t tremble at the question. He had to think about that. “I promise.”

   “Good.” He heard her take a deep breath, and instantly felt guilty. Here he was with his drama, and he hadn’t even stopped to ask her how she was feeling after last night.

   “How are you holding up?” he asked gently.

   But she surprised him. “I’m going to be okay,” she said firmly, as if daring the world to contradict her. “Some nightmares, maybe, but screw those leeches. I’m not going to let them turn me into some helpless wreck.” He knew she was smiling as she added “I’d have been happier if I could have rescued _myself_ , but, you know. Gotta take what you can get.”

   He laughed. “Next time you can do the rescuing,” he promised, so damn proud of her that it hurt. “I’ll play damsel in distress. I’ll swoon and everything. Promise.”

   “A smarter man would just stay out of trouble, instead of arranging a rescuer,” she told him primly.

   “I have been called many things, but I’m not sure smart is one of them.”

   She huffed a laugh, but before she could reply Simon heard the muffled voice of Mrs Lewis, barely audible. “Is that your mom?”

   “Yeah, I’ve got to go. Call me later, okay? I want to hear all the juicy details about you and Jace!”

   “I feel objectified!” he called down the phone, but she was laughing, and then she was gone.

*

   “We should have a movie night,” Simon announced when Jace opened the door. “Since we have nothing else to do, and also I have not even _begun_ to rectify the tragedy that is the Shadowhunter knowledge of pop culture. Or lack thereof.”

   Jace’s eyebrows rose. “I’ve heard worse ideas,” he said lightly.

   Simon jabbed a finger into Jace’s chest. “Do not malign pop culture. Someone who doesn’t know what TARDIS stands for does not get an opinion on pop culture.”

   Jace’s lips quirked, but he manfully kept a straight face. “I will keep that in mind.”

   Simon patted the blond’s shoulder. “Good boy.” He ducked away from Jace’s swipe, laughing. “I’m sorry, snookums, was that too patronising?”

   “Not at all, snuggle sausage.”

   Simon choked. Jace smirked. “You made that one up,” Simon accused.

   “I did no such thing. I overheard a truly sickening woman use it on the subway once, to refer to her boyfriend. Why, don’t you like it?”

   “I will turn to the internet,” Simon warned. “I will look up the most disgusting, the most _horrifying_ pet names in the _history of ever_ if you do not take that one back.”

   “Aw,” Jace cooed, struggling not to laugh. “What’s the matter, oojy coojy woojy-poo?”

   “That’s it, I’m filing for divorce. On grounds of _abuse_. And possibly _crimes against humanity_.” Jace was laughing – he looked ready to fall over, and Simon’s face hurt from trying so hard not to join in. “Or at least against the English language. Oh my god, _stop laughing_ , you _utter lunatic!_ Do you hear me? I’m sending you to the Hague, that was too much, you need to be put against the wall and _shot_ – ”

   Jace kissed him, grin to grin. “Shut up,” he breathed, all gold and light and laughter. “Shut up, _eromenos_.”

   _Beloved_. Simon’s breathing hitched. His back against the doorframe, he ached, somewhere down deep. They were pressed so close together that he thought he could feel Jace’s heartbeat against his own chest, through the cotton of their shirts.

   _He’s worth it._ The revelation was there, waiting for him, just as staggering and earth-shaking as it had been when he was talking to Clary. _This is worth it. This is worth – everything._

    He was in so far over his head that he could no longer see the sun.

   He swallowed hard. “I’ll go ask Alec if he wants to watch the movies with us,” he whispered. He couldn’t stop himself from sweeping the pads of his thumbs over Jace’s cheekbones, soft and slow. “You should find Isabelle.”

   Jace turned his head, brushing his lips over Simon’s wrist. “I’ll do that,” he said softly. He met Simon’s eyes, and Simon didn’t have a name for what he saw there: not quite wariness or concern – both of those were present, but they were overlaid by a calm certainty. Simon wondered if that confidence was for him – if Jace thought that Simon could handle Alec alone – or for Alec, if Jace trusted his _parabatai_ with his _eromenos_ despite the enmity between them. “But you should shower first,” he added with a small grin.

   “Good plan,” Simon said after a moment, belatedly remembering the state he was in. Changing his clothes had not made him any less sweaty. He took another kiss from Jace’s mouth, amazed all over again that he could do this now. That he could touch, and that Jace would touch back, curling his fingers around the back of Simon’s neck with such tenderness that it was hard to breathe.

   Simon had meant it to be only a quick kiss, a peck, but when their lips touched he lost hold of his intentions. It melted into slow, languid sweetness, dripping down Simon’s every nerve ending and casting them in quicksilver and platinum. Without meaning to, he slid his hands into Jace’s hair, feeling everything dissolve into a softness that burned his eyes and made him tremble; Jace kissed Simon’s lower lip, and then his upper, so unspeakably, painfully gentle that Simon wanted to beg him to stop, and thought he would die if it did, if it ended. Time spun out like silk, strung with diamonds like stars; it was an opening, a melding, something unknown inside him unfolding to encompass the world; it was taking him apart, piece by quivering piece, softly, gently, Jace slipping into his soul like a stiletto into a heart, with a whisper and a sigh, and it was so _much_. Simon had never been touched like this before, never even dreamed about it. It _hurt._ It shook him to the core and it was so, so much, too good to bear, to breathe.

   He had no idea how much time passed before the kiss finally ended. When it did he was shaking, almost scared by the intensity still echoing beneath his skin. There was a dull, sweet ache in the pit of his stomach and in his throat, and his eyes were stinging. He had to blink rapidly and take a deep, shaky breath before he felt halfway solid again.

   Jace pressed their foreheads together. He was breathing hard, rough and uneven. “ _Ya’aburnee_ ,” he whispered hoarsely, low and fervent as a prayer. He was trembling. “By the Angel, Simon. _Ya’aburnee_.”

   Simon swallowed hard. “Ya-ah-boor-nay,” he sounded out quietly. The unfamiliar word felt smooth on his tongue, like a pearl. “What does it mean?”

   Jace didn’t answer. “You should shower,” he said softly after a moment, stepping back and away.

   Simon nodded once. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” They were both shaken. Simon didn’t think Jace was upset or angry, but that had unnerved them both. Sex was one thing – sex was easy. But a kiss like that made it hard to ignore the words neither of them had said yet, growing more tangible with every moment. Crystallising like amber between them.

   “Don’t forget about Isabelle,” Simon reminded him, and went back to his own room, his thoughts spinning like nebulae.

*

   His hair was still damp from the shower as texted the strange word Jace had used to Clary, spelling it out phonetically and asking her to Google it when she got the chance.

   It was only then, as he was putting his phone away, that he realised he had no idea where Alec’s room was.  

   “Well, this is annoying,” he announced to the corridor. “I don’t suppose there’s a handy ghost who could give me directions to Alec? No? Anybody?” After that kiss, he felt a little reluctant to go and ask Jace for help. They both needed a little time apart to work through their thoughts; it would be awkward, popping his head around the door to ask for a map. Which was another thing. “Or a Marauder’s Map?” He looked up at the ceiling, half-expecting an enchanted parchment to fall down at his feet.

   “Miow?”

   He looked down. “I will accept a magic cat as a substitute,” he said mildly.

   Church, daintily licking his paw, rolled his eyes. Simon gaped – that was an incredibly strange look for a cat! – and for a moment could only stare as Church got up, twitched his tail, and began walking down the hallway.

   After a moment, he looked back over his shoulder as if to say _well? Aren’t you coming, stupid human?_

   Simon shut his jaw with a click and hurried after him.

*

   “This is it?” Simon asked.

   Church gave him a scathing look, huffed primly, and stalked away.

   “All right then,” Simon muttered. The door looked no different to the dozens of others Church had led him past, but if you couldn’t trust a magic cat, who could you trust?

   He knocked. Alec was Jace’s best friend, and that alone was a good reason to try and make things better with him. But there was also the fact that, in hindsight, Simon was no longer so certain that Alec had spoken out of jealousy. Oh, he’d called Simon _nothing,_ called him useless – but only right at the end, after their tempers had gotten away from them both. He’d been more concerned with the potential danger to Jace than insulting Simon, hadn’t he?

   Simon didn’t like it. But if Alec was really only trying to look out for Jace...If it was more about protecting his _parabatai_ than driving off a rival for Jace’s affections...

   Well, they were about to find out, weren’t they?

   The door opened without warning. For half a heartbeat Simon caught a glimpse of what Alec’s face looked like unmarred by a scowl, open and unguarded and stunningly pretty. But then the Shadowhunter recognised his visitor and the walls slammed down, turning his bluebell eyes to ice.

   And yes, Simon had just compared Alec’s eyes to flowers. _Shoot me now._

   “Here’s the thing,” he said quickly, before Alec could snarl at him. “You’re Jace’s best friend, and at least for the minute I’m his – boyfriend. Or whatever. So it’s really, really stupid for us to fight all the time.” His pride burned, but his common sense shoved his pique aside. Maybe at St Xavier’s it wasn’t a big deal to hold a grudge forever. But this was the Shadow World. _Here be dragons._ It wasn’t a playground, wasn’t a game: people died here. Who knew if he’d have to fight side by side with Alec at some point? Wasn’t it better for them all to get along, just in case they ended up depending on each other?

   And... “We both love Jace,” he said quietly. “We shouldn’t – we shouldn’t be fighting.”

   Alec stilled. “You love him?”

   Simon froze. Had he said that? He had, hadn’t he? _Oh shit._ “Don’t kill me,” he blurted, only half joking. His hand went to his left wrist, touching his fingertips to Simiel’s hilt, his heart racing in case – just in case –

   Alec’s eyes followed the gesture. Something like pain sparked in his eyes at the sight of the blade, but he didn’t comment on it this time. Simon let his hand fall.

   “I want to know,” he said quietly, “if I’m putting Jace in danger.” He met Alec’s eyes squarely. “I want to know everything.”

   Alec stared at him, his expression unreadable. “Do you really?” he asked, and Simon knew he wasn’t talking about the ‘everything’.

   Simon felt the tug on his heart, remembering the aching breathlessness that had felt like being unmade. The word Alec wanted – or maybe feared? – sprang sharp and sure to Simon’s tongue, but he hesitated. It rested there, a near-tangible weight in his mouth, light as a feather and heavy as osmium. A razor pressed hard against the inside of his lips.

   Was this love? How were you supposed to know? What he’d felt for Clary – what he still felt for Clary – was not this. She and Jace were so similar, he realised, with their confidence and their smirks and their quicksilver tongues. But Clary... Simon struggled to put his finger on the difference. Clary... Clary was _whole._ She was complete within herself. Simon had always adored that about her, the way she was so _finished_ , the way she could love without needing. She loved herself and didn’t need anyone to tell her she was worth it, needed no validation from those around her or the world. She was kind and clever and kicked his ass at Grand Theft Auto, and he would die for her without thinking twice.

   Although it was probably a good thing that she’d turned him down. He could see that now. Otherwise he would now be trying to convince her and Jace that they could make a threesome work, and he suspected that that would be like trying to herd cats. Cats that turned out to be manticores. Hungry ones.

   But Jace... Jace was a mystery, mercurial and fascinating and exquisite. A contradiction, a riddle with the face of an angel. He had blood on the soles of his feet and shadows in his eyes – but then he would laugh, or kiss Simon’s wrist, or give Simon weapons instead of benching him. He was a warrior who played the piano, who glanced at a technology and instantly saw how to use it to help his people. He was scarred inside and out, and yet he could be so gentle; he faced down demons and yet he’d been terrified when Simon was lost to the rune-music this morning. The way he’d pressed their foreheads together... He had not hesitated to go after Clary, even though he disliked her, and he’d been the only one who’d promised that they would find Simon’s mom. He made Simon laugh and smile and ache.

   What was the difference? What Simon felt for Clary – it was...light. Not inconsequential, but like sunlight; bright, and warm, and sometimes burning. There were solar flares when they fought or clashed, but the sun was always there, integral, necessary. The sun could create deserts, and Simon knew he would be willing to do that if someone hurt Clary; but it was life, too. It was...it just _was_. There could be no world without it.

   Jace...His feelings for Jace were the ocean, and there could be no world without that, either. Beautiful, and terrible, and terrifying, the depth and breadth of it, the power of this thing he felt. You could drown in the ocean. It could swallow you whole and turn your bones to coral and your eyes to silver. There were shadows in it, whirlpools and storms and things with sharp teeth. It was not a steady, calm thing, like sunlight dripping honey-sweet to earth: it demanded worship.

   But it deserved it, too. Life had come from the seas. And humans were 70% water: the ocean was already inside him, with its salt and its pearls. The sun was an integral part of the world, but the ocean was an integral part of _him_ , in him so deep that there would be no getting it out.

   Was that love?

   Alec was still waiting for an answer.

   “I care about him,” Simon said carefully, “more than I’ve ever – more than I’ve ever cared about anyone.”

   Alec was still staring at him, a small frown etched between his eyebrows. Simon had no idea what was on his face, but whatever it was must have satisfied Alec; he breathed out slowly and nodded once, jerkily. “All right. Come in.”

   Excruciatingly aware that this was Alec’s territory in more senses than one, Simon followed him in. The room itself was identical to Jace’s, to Simon’s, but it had more personal touches than either. Where Jace’s was stark and spartan, and Simon’s basically untouched, Alec had photographs in simple frames, and a neat desk beneath a single shelf of books. His bedspread was a rich, dark blue, not the Institute-standard grey. Simon wondered if Alec had chosen it himself, or if Isabelle or the Lightwood parents had had a hand in decorating the room.

   He sat down in the chair by the desk, but Alec stayed standing, wary and uncertain like a wild animal not sure what to do with this strange intruder.

   “Tell me,” Simon prompted, “what would happen if your Clave found out about Jace and I.”

   “Nothing good.” Alec leaned against the windowsill, watching Simon with that mask of an expression Shadowhunters were probably taught in the nursery. “The Clave don’t like anyone being gay, but it’s worse for Shadowhunters than for other Nephilim. They – ”

   “Wait a sec – what do you mean, ‘other Nephilim’? I thought Shadowhunters and Nephilim were the same thing?” Simon was baffled.

   Alec frowned at him, bemused. “Are all mundanes soldiers?”

   “No, of course not, but – what?”

   Alec actually looked amused. “Shadowhunters are Nephilim, but not all Nephilim are Shadowhunters. We’re a caste – a warrior caste. All Nephilim train to be Shadowhunters, but most aren’t right for it. Just as most mundanes aren’t suited for war.” He shrugged. “All of us fight. Some just do it with a pen or a hoe rather than a sword.”

   Remembering the Bone City, and the bricks and mortar of Shadowhunter bone, Simon thought he understood. “So everyone in Idris works to support the Shadowhunters, because you’re the ones who kill demons?”

   “Yes.”

   Simon made a note to investigate Idris’ economy. He suspected that Miss Reynolds, the Business Studies teacher at St Xavier’s, would have a field day with it. But Alec was still talking.

   “There are normal Nephilim who qualify to become Shadowhunters, and mundanes who drink from the Cup and Ascend, but the best of us are those from the First Families – the ones descended from Jonathan Shadowhunter’s original cadre, his _agela_. The ones who have _always_ been Shadowhunters.”

   “Oh, God, it’s purebloods and muggleborns all over again,” Simon groaned, letting his head fall into his hands. He thought of Jace saying _‘_ _Shadowhunters are bred for this. We have been for a thousand years.’_ “And the Waylands are purebloods, aren’t they?” he asked, his heart sinking.

  “Pureblood Shadowhunters, as far back as you can go,” Alec confirmed. “And that’s the problem. If Jace were the son of a craftsman who had ascended to the Shadowhunter ranks, the Clave might be willing to look the other way. But he isn’t. He’s the result of a thousand years of Shadowhunter breeding – faster, stronger, _better_ than other Nephilim. And if they learned that he was going to take himself out of the gene pool, the Clave would be furious.”

   “Why is this awesome demon-slaying group of people ruled over by such _idiots?”_ Simon demanded. “Gay guys have been having children forever, they just close their eyes and picture Brad Pitt instead of Angelina Jolie. Jace could marry a guy and still have kids. _You_ could marry a guy and still have kids.” At Alec’s stunned expression, Simon sighed and rubbed his temple. “Okay, but what would they actually _do_ , if they were criminally thick and didn’t realise that Jace could still give them a bunch of bouncing baby monster hunters?” This was all so bizarre. It had been a little over a _week_. No one was getting married, and yet here he was arguing his and Jace’s right to do so. It was patently ridiculous.

    “If they ordered him to give you up, and he refused?” Alec’s face tightened. “They could confiscate his estate, his home and funds. To be returned when he complied. And if that didn’t work – if it got to the point where they no longer believed they could change his mind – they would strip him of his runes.”

   A chill, sick and cold. “What does that mean?” Simon asked quietly.

   Alec ran his hand over his face. “It means they would cast him out,” he said harshly. “He wouldn’t be a Shadowhunter anymore. He wouldn’t even be a _Nephilim_ anymore, not in any way that mattered. His seraph blades would reject him and his name would become a curse. He would be unmade.”

    “But that’s insane!” Simon burst out. “What, so rather than wait and see if he changes his mind in a few years, they just – destroy him? There’s cutting your nose off to spite your face and then there’s _fucking stupid.”_

   He’d expected Alec to get angry, but he didn’t; his blue eyes actually calmed in the face of Simon’s frustration. “You don’t understand. Everything – _everything_ we do is to protect the world from demons. Every minute of every day belongs to that goal. To turn from it, to go against it, is a betrayal of the task Raziel set us. It’s – blasphemy. By being with you – or any man – Jace is weakening our war effort by denying the world his sons and daughters to fight after him. Don’t you see that?”

   Simon bit his tongue. “It’s a moot point,” he forced through gritted teeth. “Gays and lesbians and even asexual people are perfectly capable of having kids. So there’s no need to destroy anybody.”

   “Except that they won’t order Jace to have children,” Alec pointed out quietly. “They’ll tell him to leave you. And he won’t, because he’s the most loyal person I know.” He glanced at Simon. “What do mundane Generals do when a soldier disobeys an order?”

   “We court-martial them,” Simon snapped. “There’s a _trial_. We don’t unmake them as human beings!”

   Alec shrugged. “You used to shoot them,” he said blithely.

   Simon had nothing to say to that. He was pretty sure that it was true.

   “So will you leave him?” Alec asked softly. “Now that you know what he’s risking?”

   Simon picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “I’ll talk to him about it. But ultimately it’s his decision to make, not mine. He’s the one with the most to lose.” He fell silent for a moment. “If he decides it’s too much to risk, then I’ll go. If he doesn’t...” _Then I don’t know_ how _to go._ How did you take the ocean out of your blood?

   What were they going to do, when they got Jocelyn back? Would that be the end? Or could he and Jace manage some semblance of a normal relationship, one in which they didn’t live in each other’s pocket but in separate houses? Could they date like a normal couple after what they’d been through together? Simon couldn’t really see them going for ice-cream after they’d stood down a combined pack and coven of vampires and werewolves side by side. After Simiel and the Bone City and the Forsaken. What would they say to each other, if they tried to be normal?

   _But he could come to band practise, and I could show him Forbidden Planet and take him to the movies._ If only _Return of the King_ was still showing in cinemas...

   “You said – ” Alec bit off the words. “If you really love him, you’ll go.”

   “Really?” Simon didn’t look at him. He drew Simiel and stared at the floor without seeing it, slowly twisting the dowel through his fingers. “I don’t think that’s what love is. I don’t think that’s how it works. You can’t force people to do what you want, even if you think it’s right, or to keep them safe.” Jace, giving him armour and weapons instead of ordering him to the sidelines and safety. “You can’t take people’s choices away from them. I’m not even sure you have a right to protect someone who doesn’t want protecting.”

   “So that’s it?” Alec demanded, his voice seething with barely reined-in anger. “You think it’s worth it? His entire life for a summer romance, a few kisses? You’ll let them destroy him?”

   _Do you think Valentine_ listens _when your mother begs him not to –_

   Simon snapped into the cold, clear place like a bullet into the chamber of a gun, like a blade from a sheath. It was the easiest thing in the world.

_If you hurt her –_

   Simon looked up at Alec, his bones turned to steel and ice around a sea-storm heart.

  _If you hurt HIM –_

   Whatever he saw in Simon’s eyes, Alec flinched.

_I will **rip you apart**._

   Simon smiled, slow and sharp. “No,” he said softly. “I didn’t say that.”

   Alec didn’t say anything. The two of them looked at each other, and a wordless understanding passed between them. After a long pause Alec nodded once, slowly, with a grave understanding and just a flicker of something that might have been approval. Simon calmly slipped back through the doorway in his head. The cool sharpness faded from the world.

   “I should go,” Simon said, shaken. Again. He’d felt it again. That vicious poison, that exulting certainty that he would wreak harm and hurt and _enjoy_ it – he’d felt it again. Toxic and heroin-sweet, and – and ridiculous. He couldn’t murder the Clave even if he’d wanted to. Not even if they laid a hand on Jace.

   _Oh yes you can._

   Simon jolted to his feet, feeling sick.

   “Wait.” Alec rose too, and then hesitated, uncertainty passing over his face. “I – there’s something you should have. If you – if you really do care.”

   Simon frowned as Alec went to his wardrobe and opened the door, but he waited, curious. Alec obscured most of Simon’s view, but he thought he saw the Shadowhunter lift a false bottom or panel from the bottom of the wardrobe, before he straightened up and returned to Simon.

   He was holding a book.

   “It’s an old edition,” Alec explained, proffering it to Simon, who took it. _The Shadowhunter Codex._ It was thick and heavy, with a slightly battered cover bearing a Shadowhunter rune beneath the title in faded gilt: the one that looked like a diamond with horns. Simon ran his fingertip over it. After this morning, he was afraid of hearing its music in his head, but the song was a familiar one, and didn’t try to consume him. It was in the seraph blades, and on Jace’s skin. _Angelic power._ “Some of the things in it were edited out of the newer versions.”

   Things Alec thought he should read, clearly. Simon wondered what they were. “Thanks,” he said, with real gratitude. He’d never turned down a book in his life, and one about Shadowhunters? _Gimme._ “I’ll get it back to you.”

   But Alec shook his head. “Keep it. I have another.” He met Simon’s eyes, and for a moment silence hung between them again, easier and less tense than before. “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” he said finally. “And if you hurt him, no one will ever find your body.” He spoke so mildly, so evenly, that Simon knew that Alec meant every word. It should have terrified him, but instead it soothed the black viciousness still coiling and uncurling in his chest like a shifting snake. That part of him – he found himself approving of Alec’s threat. _Someone else who will take care of Jace._ As if Jace wasn’t more than capable of taking care of himself. “But if you’re going to try and be with him, you should know more about us.”

   He nodded at the book. Simon tucked it under his arm. “I’ll treat it like a Torah,” he promised.

   “Good.” And Alec smiled, small and wry. “Now get out of my room, mundane.”

   Simon laughed, and went to do just that – before he remembered, and paused at the door. “We’re doing another movie night thing,” he told Alec. “Be there, or be square.”

   Alec looked baffled, and Simon laughed again, slipping out of the room and tugging the door shut behind him.

*

   It wasn’t really a movie _night_ , because they started in the afternoon and only broke for toasted sandwiches, but it was a resounding success anyway. Isabelle deigned to grace them with her presence, and Alec cautiously joined them halfway through _The Chamber of Secrets._

   “What’s going on – ?” he started, but Isabelle flapped her hand to hush him, her eyes fixed on the iPad.

   “The Polyjuice potion is wearing off, shut up!”

   Alec shut up and settled down to watch.

   Simon struggled to concentrate. They were all on the floor again, on blankets and surrounded by drinks and snacks, but this time it wasn’t Jace’s body that was distracting him. His thoughts kept snagging on Alec’s question, on his own feelings. On Jace’s. Logic warred with emotion; he kept trying to tell himself that he’d only known Jace for a handful of days, that the intensity came from their hormones and would fizzle out sooner or later and that he should be prepared for that. People who met in life-or-death situations often ended up together – it wasn’t just a movie cliché, it was factual, biological, adrenalin and the awareness of mortality pushing people together. Probably when things calmed down – when they rescued Jocelyn – this thing between him and Jace would dim and fade without that fuel of danger.

   The thought of it was like a heart attack.

   _‘You love him?’_

   _Chamber of Secrets_ finished, and they moved to _Prisoner of Azkaban._ Simon opened the Codex idly, carefully turning pages as Harry dealt with a much more dangerous book on the screen, trying not to be eaten by the _Monster Book of Monsters_. The pages of the Codex did not have teeth, thankfully: they were paper, not parchment and not crumbling, but were faintly yellowed. He was a little disappointed to see that the text was printed, not handwritten as he’d half-expected.

   If any of the Shadowhunters thought it odd or rude for Simon to read during a movie, they didn’t say anything. Jace glanced at him, but Simon smiled back reassuringly and his _erastes_ returned to the adventures of Harry and friends. Restlessly, Simon scanned the dense text, not so much reading as seeking a distraction. There was a section towards the end of the book listing the names and attributes of angels; remembering his new seraph blades, Simon searched out their names, curious to see if there was some meaning behind them, like there had been for Simiel.

   There was.

   Israfel was an archangel of Islam, the angel of song and music. Appropriate, and also a compliment: according to the Codex Israfel was listed as having ‘the sweetest voice in all creation’. But Anael, another archangel (this one Jewish) didn’t preside over music but over romantic love. Theliel was the angel prince of love, and Simon had no idea what the difference between an archangel and an angel prince was, but he didn’t really need to know.

   _‘You love him?’_

   His fingers shook a little as he turned the page, looking for Sandalphon and carefully not looking up at Jace.

   Sandalphon was another angel of music – _the_ angel of music, according to the Codex. A leader of the seraphim, he had fought with Michael against Satan and was responsible for guiding people to use their God-given talents to make the world a better place. But the bit that Simon found most interesting was that Sandalphon was one of two angels in existence who had begun life as a human.

   Harry was eavesdropping in the Three Broomsticks on the screen; Simon stared at the page, wheels turning in his mind. He thought about the Victorian language of flowers, how men and woman had used arrangements of blossoms to send messages, and wondered if Jace was doing something similar with these angels. If there was a message there.

    Beyond the obvious. Two angels of love...His stomach twisted, and he swallowed hard.

   A human who had become an angel. Music and love. Jace had chosen archangels and princes and seraphim to protect his _eromenos_ , to back up the _armaskō_ _blade he had given Simon. So much attention to detail, so much care, to pick angels so appropriate..._

_‘You love him?’_

Softly, so as not to disturb the others (they were heatedly arguing over whether or not it was right to put down Buckbeak), Simon closed the book and pushed it to the edge of the blankets. His heart was a ripe fruit, delicate flesh bursting with sweetness.

   Jace didn’t start when Simon touched his wrist. Without looking away from the screen, the corners of his lips curved, and he turned his palm over.

   They laced their fingers together and watched the movie.

*

   They got through _Goblet of Fire_ , at which point Isabelle protested the lack of sequels.

   “It can’t end there! They have to kill Voldemort!”

   “The next one’s not out on DVD yet,” Simon told her, trying not to laugh as she flailed. “But you could just read the books.”

   “They’re books?” Her head snapped around to her brother. “Are they in the library?”

   “How should I know?” Alec demanded.

   “I’ll take you to Borders,” Simon promised. “We’ll get you the whole series.” He grinned. “Except the last one.”

   “What? I have to have the last one! I need to know how it ends!”

   “It came out last month,” he told her. “...and immediately sold out.”

   “ARGH.”

   He laughed at her distress, because he was an evil, evil person. “I’ll lend you my copy,” he promised, and she cheered up immediately.

   It was late. They’d watched all of the HP movies; it was dark outside, and while Simon was trying to decide between Star Wars (which one?) and _LotR: The Two Towers_ , the debate became moot when Jace declared a need for sustenance. “Something heartier than sandwiches.”

   “What about pizza?” Alec suggested.

   “I want ananas on mine,” Isabelle chimed in.

   “Ananas?” Alec frowned.

   Jace laughed quietly. “She means pineapple.” He grinned at his _parabatai_. “She’s trying to be clever.”

   “I’m not being clever, English is being stupid. It’s called ananas in _every other language_. And pineapple is a ridiculous word anyway. Who looked at it and thought ‘yes, this looks like an apple from a pine tree’?”

   “Somebody drunk?” Simon suggested, shutting down the iPad.

   “If the two of you are quite done with besmirching the honour of the English language,” Jace said dryly, “maybe we could get moving?”

   They made their collective way to the door. “I could probably make pizza from scratch,” Isabelle said thoughtfully.

   Simon watched with amusement as the other two boys paled. “No need for that,” Jace said hurriedly. “It’s late, you shouldn’t put yourself out for a little pizza.”

   “And ordering in will be quicker,” Alec added.

   Isabelle glanced at Simon, her eyes glittering with mirth, and Simon realised that she knew full well that she couldn’t cook. He grinned at her, but before he could speak there was a tapping at the door.

   Simon froze, but the Shadowhunters were unconcerned. “Sounds like Hugo,” Alec commented, and Jace, reaching the door first, opened it.

   It was indeed Hodge’s raven, hopping from foot to foot impatiently. When he saw the teenagers he flared his wings and cawed, making sure that he had their full attention. When he was certain that he had it he leapt into the air in a flutter of inky feathers and disappeared down the corridor.

   The Shadowhunters exchanged glances. “Looks like Hodge found something,” Jace said.

*

   Alec and Isabelle argued the merits of various pizza toppings as Hugo led them to the library, but Jace and Simon were silent. Simon found his insides clenching tight with wondering what Hodge had found, and it didn’t take a genius to know Jace was remembering the circumstances in which Simon had discovered the runes. The light-heartedness that had been so buoyant just a few minutes ago had gone the way of the Titanic.

   The library was just as beautiful as before, though. Simon felt some of his nervousness fade as he stepped inside. No matter where you went, a library was always a sanctuary for someone who loved books. There were a thousand means of escape here – escape from anything, everything. Surrounded by countless doors to other worlds, it was hard not to feel safe.

    Hodge had arranged four chairs in front of his desk. When he spotted them, he gestured for them to take the seats. “Come in, all of you. I believe that I have puzzled out your runes, Simon.”

   Simon’s phone vibrated in his pocket just as he sat down; without considering the breach of etiquette he pulled it out. There were only a handful of people who had his number – his mother, Clary, Luke, Eric and the guys – and none of them, with the exception of Luke, were people he would willingly ignore. Not now, when it could be so important.

   “Simon?”

   It was a text from Clary. Simon stared at it, his lungs turned to glass inside his ribcage.

   _Your spelling was all wrong, but I figured it out. Where’d you hear this – from lover boy?_

   Beneath it she had copied out the definition of _ya’aburnee_ , and it was that that made his heart stop. He’d wondered if it might be a Shadowhunter word, and thus something Google couldn’t provide an answer for, but...

   _Ya’aburnee (Arabic): literally ‘you bury me’. The hope that a loved one will outlive you so you never have to deal with the pain of living without them._

   “Simon?”

   Simon looked up, his fingers tight around his phone. “I’m sorry, what?”

   “Is everything all right?” Hodge looked concerned, not annoyed, but Simon remembered the manners his mother had drummed into him and snapped the phone shut. He was achingly, hyperconciously aware of Jace sitting next to him, but if he looked at the blond he would – he would –

   “Yeah. Everything’s fine, sorry.” He swallowed and shoved his phone into his pocket. “What did you find?”

   “Actually, it was not so much a matter of _finding_ as _remembering_.” Hodge had several sheets of paper spread out on the desk in front of him, covered in runes both familiar to Simon – from his dream, from the blood and the music – and strange. “I’m quite embarrassed that it took me so long.”

   Jace sat up straighter in his chair. “You know these runes?”

   “Of course, my dear boy.” Hodge glanced over at Simon. “They are Jocelyn’s.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to all my lovely readers, and especially to the ones who leave comments. Thank you, all of you, for sticking with me so long! We're hitting the final stretch now...
> 
> Enjoy!

   “Not that your mother created them, of course,” Hodge added. “But she did design this _telesma_.” He gestured to the pages in front of him.

   “She was a runecaster?” Isabelle asked, her eyes wide.

   Jace was frowning. “I thought she was a Shadowhunter?”

   _Ya’aburnee_. The word was a soft breath in Simon’s mind, one that stole all of the air out of the room. But they were talking about his mother. He struggled to catch up and pay attention, his heartbeat thrumming under his ribcage. “Could somebody explain for the noob in the room?”

   Instead of an explanation, they gave him four odd looks until he said, frustrated, “a newbie, someone who doesn’t know stuff. Can we get on with it?”

   “Forgive me, Simon.” Hodge looked chastened. “Runecasters are a Shadowhunter sect, like the Silent Brothers. They work to create _telesmes,_ which combine several runes to create a new effect different to all of them.”

   Simon frowned. “So...they make new runes?”

   “Of course not,” Alec said scathingly. “That’s impossible.”

   “Think of it as like cooking,” Hodge said hurriedly. “But instead of eggs and flour and sugar, a runecaster uses Marks, and creates a _telesma_ rather than a cake.”

   “Like the scrying _telesma_ ,” Isabelle added helpfully. “Which is made up of the clairvoyant, insight, precision and _mnemosyne_ runes.”

   “Yeah, but anyone can cook,” Simon pointed out. “What makes runecasters so special?”

   “The eggs are bombs,” Jace said dryly.

   “...Oh.”

   “It takes great skill to create _telesmes_ ,” Hodge explained. “It is not enough to just scrawl the runes next to each other. To use Isabelle’s example, I could mark _clairvoyance, insight, precision_ and _mnemosyne_ on my arm, but I would not be able to scry the location of even the Empire State building if they were not drawn in the precise design that allows them to interact with each other.”

   “And if a _telesma_ is even slightly off, it has a tendency to explode,” Jace continued, still in that perfectly even tone. “Which is why most Shadowhunters don’t use them. If you draw a rune incorrectly, it just won’t work, but a bad _telesma_ can kill you.”

   Simon’s head spun. “And my mom can make these things?”

  “Indeed. She was very good at it, but she kept her talent a secret. Only her friends knew – I don’t believe she even told her parents.”

   “How come? It’s this incredible thing, right? Why wouldn’t she tell people?”

   “Because,” Alec said, “runecasters are like the Silent Brothers. They fight in other ways, but not in the field.” His eyes were fixed on Hodge, and he was frowning. “It’s completely illegal for them to risk themselves in battle. You should have told someone!” This was directed to his tutor.

   Hodge met his gaze calmly. “And would you report Jace, if he suddenly developed a runecaster’s powers?”

   “I – ” Alec paused, uncertain.

   “That’s different,” Isabelle said. “He’s our brother.”

   Hodge sighed. “It has been one of my biggest regrets that the three of you have had so little contact with others of your own age. I argued for all of you to be sent to Idris for schooling, but Maryse wouldn’t hear of it. And now I fear that you have no grasp of what true friendship is.” He looked over the three Shadowhunter teenagers. “You are a family, the three of you – but you have no friends. And there is a very great difference between them.”

   “Friends are the family you choose,” Simon murmured, thinking of Clary.

   Hodge looked startled by the interruption, but he nodded. “Yes. Precisely.” He returned his attention to his students. “Many families are not as close as yours. Husband and wives separate. Siblings grow apart, perhaps even move far away from each other. Blood can mean very little, in the end. But real friends can last forever, and the fact of the matter, Alec, is that we were more loyal to Jocelyn than we were to the Clave.”

   _And you were more loyal to Valentine than to your little Clave as well_ , Simon thought with a sudden flash of steel.

   But Alec seemed to have come to some understanding within himself: he shook his head. “We’re Nephilim,” he insisted. “Bound by Raziel’s blood to each other and to the Clave. Blood is thicker than water, Hodge. You had a duty and you failed it.”

   Jace and Isabelle both stared at Alec, Isabelle with surprise, and Jace impassively.

   Looking very tired, Hodge said softly, “ _Dam habrit ava yoter mimayim shel harehem_.”

   Jace frowned. “ ‘The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’?”

   “Yes. The phrase ‘blood is thicker than water’ is a corrupted shorthand.” Hodge spoke quietly. “The original phrase states that the bond between the ones you choose – either through taking the oath of the Jewish covenant, or by becoming blood-brothers – is stronger than that between family members.”

   They were all silent at that.

   Hodge shook his head. “But we have become greatly side-tracked,” he said firmly. “We were discussing your mother, Simon, and her _telesma_. From the runes you saw, I think I can safely say that it is your mother’s favourite _telesma_ , the one she used to place solid objects in her artwork. But I cannot be entirely certain until you show us the pattern you saw them in.”

   “I think I can remember,” Simon said, dazed. His mind was racing, thoughts catching like sparks on tinder. “You mean she could put things in her pictures?”

   “The paintings at your apartment,” Jace said suddenly. “They were all torn out of their frames.”

   And they had been. Because Valentine had been Jocelyn’s husband; he must have known what she could do. “He must have thought the Cup was in one of them...”

   “Or hoped, at least,” Hodge agreed. “But I think we can safely assume that he was wrong. We would know by now if he had the Cup, I think.”

   “Is nobody else curious about where Simon saw those runes?” Isabelle asked suddenly. She turned her head to face Simon, donning an elegant frown the way another young woman would a piece of jewellery. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about the Shadow World?”

   “I didn’t. Hell, I’m not sure I do now.” Simon rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “I dreamed them. The runes. I know how insane that sounds, but – ”

   ...But none of them looked the least bit sceptical. Isabelle nodded once and sat back in her chair, apparently satisfied. When Simon glanced at him questioningly, Jace shrugged.  “Nephilim know to pay attention to their dreams.”

   It was Simon’s turn to frown. “You think you can see the future in your dreams?”

   Alec snorted. “Not without a foresight rune,” he said before Jace could answer. “Dreams are your subconscious’ way of organising your mind. They’re not messages from the future, they’re messages from _yourself_.”

   “Your mother probably showed you the _telesma_ and then made you forget it,” Jace added. “In case you ever needed it. And when you did, your subconscious offered it up to you via a dream.”

   _In case you ever needed it._ Which it seemed he did. Simon glanced at Hodge. “Don’t you remember what the pattern is?”

   “For the _telesma_? I’m sorry, Simon, but I do not. It has been a very long time, and I fear I could not draw it correctly.”

   Simon nodded slowly. “Guess it’s up to me, then. Anybody have a pen?”

   A pen was found, and Simon bent over a piece of paper, casting his mind back to the dream. Then he froze. “Uh...I’m not going to blow up if I get this wrong, am I?”

   “Not with paper and ink,” Hodge reassured him.

   “Although you might set the paper on fire,” Isabelle piped up. She sounded far too excited by the prospect.

   “Oh, _that’s_ reassuring,” Simon muttered under his breath. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, playing over the dream in his mind. His mom had given him the envelope...There had been the tarot card inside, and Simon had stared at it. And then it was ripped from his hand, and he’d bled on it...

   Slowly, more than a little nervously, Simon moved his pen over the paper. The music – what he now guessed was the song of the _telesma_ – sounded in his head, but as if from far away. It didn’t sweep him under this time; instead, it was like listening to someone give instructions, like morse code embedded in strings and crystalline flutes. His brain was a transducer, converting the song into angles, curves, positioning.

   _Straight left...now go down...make a right-angled curve just there...Now move to North-North-West_...

   The runes formed a circle, a clock-face with Marks counting down the time Jocelyn had left, and Simon sketched them in, holding the bloodied card in his mind. It was not a perfect circle, though, but that actually made it easier; it felt more natural, it flowed better. _Wabi-sabi_ , the Japanese aesthetic of flawed beauty. He remembered his mom talking about it after one of her pottery classes. True perfection could only be achieved with imperfection...

   He stopped when the music stopped. When he looked up, they were all staring at him, and he felt a flush of embarrassment. “What?”

   Jace was pale. “You were humming,” he said quietly.

   “And you didn’t set anything on fire.” Isabelle sounded disappointed.

   “Which means that it was correctly drawn. May I, Simon?” Simon relinquished the paper, and Hodge inspected it. “Yes. That is most definitely Jocelyn’s _telesma_. There can be no doubt about it.” He placed the paper back on the desk, handling it as if it were a sheet of gold leaf.

   “Now we only have to find the picture Simon’s mother hid the Cup in,” Alec said.

   “No,” Simon said. “We don’t.” He stared at the paper, at the runes measuring his mother’s life like hours on a clock. Adrenalin tightened his stomach, pooling sick and cold and electric. Had they counted down already? Was Jocelyn still alive? He blinked hard, his breath shuddering quick and uneven in his throat for a second. She’d congratulated him on his _armask_ _ō_ bond, in the dream. Right before handing him the key to the Cup.“I know where it is.”

   When he looked up, Jace was staring at him, and Simon had no name for the look in his eyes.

*

   “It’s not our job to get the Cup,” Alec insisted. The five of them had moved to the kitchen, and the table was scattered with rapidly emptying pizza boxes. “There are operatives of the Clave in this city right now looking for it. Pass the information on to them and let _them_ get it.”

   “Dorothea was barely willing to talk to _me_ ,” Jace said. “If the Clave show up on her doorstep, she’s going to bolt straight through her Portal, and then we’ll never find her. _Or_ the Cup.”

   “Jace is correct,” Hodge said. He ate his pizza with a knife and fork, cutting each slice into small, neat pieces. Simon tried not to stare. “Jocelyn hid the Cup with great care. She did not want it to fall into the hands of the Clave; Valentine stole it from them once before, after all. No, she clearly wanted only one person to be able to find it, and that is Simon, and Simon alone.”

   _Then let him go alone._ Simon could see the words on Alec’s face, as clearly as a tattoo, but to his surprise Alec didn’t say them. Maybe their talk had done some good. He seemed to be making an effort to tone down the kryptonite, anyway. Simon was grateful.

   Isabelle tossed a beribboned braid over her shoulder. “Well, I’m game.”

   “As well you should be. Think of the glory if we bring the Mortal Cup back to Idris!” Jace’s eyes were bright, the same wild light in them that Simon had seen when Jace laughed at the Forsaken. “Our names will never be forgotten.”

   “I don’t care about glory.” Alec’s gaze was missing the same mania, but he never looked away from Jace’s face. “I care about not doing anything stupid.”

   “What do we do with it once we have it?” Simon didn’t realise he’d spoken aloud until he saw them all staring at him. “Well? I’m with Alec on this one: I don’t care about glory either.” He wanted to grin at Alec’s obvious surprise, but the urge quickly faded. “I want my mom back. Is getting the Cup going to help? Because if we’re just doing this to hand it back to the Clave, just because – then I’m not interested.”

   “Of course the Cup must be reclaimed,” Hodge said, shocked. “It can hardly be left with Dorothea forever.”

   “Why not?” Simon challenged. He looked at Jace. “You told me that it kills people. Almost everyone who drinks from it. And the Clave clearly can’t take proper care of it. So why shouldn’t it stay lost?”

   “I said _Valentine_ would kill a lot of people with it,” Jace corrected him. “Because he wouldn’t care about using it properly.”

   “It’s one of the Mortal Instruments!” Isabelle said. “You can’t just – ” Words failed her.

   “Would you burn the Mona Lisa?” Alec asked. “Or the Sistine Chapel?” He blinked at Simon’s incredulous look. “What? I said _we_ shouldn’t go get it, not that nobody should.”

   “Well, if the Mona Lisa _killed people_ , then yeah, I would burn it,” Simon snapped. “Or if some psychopath could use it to _take over the world._ ” He glared around the table. “None of you have answered my question. What do we do once we have it? We can’t give it to Valentine. If the Clave get it Valentine’ll just steal it from them again. So what’s the point in going to get it?” He looked at Hodge. “How many people can draw my mom’s _telesma_?”

   “At the moment?” Hodge asked quietly. “Two. Her, and you. Since Jocelyn was not an official runecaster, her _telesma_ never entered the records. No one else knows it.”

   “Right. So even if Valentine figures out where it is, he can’t get it out of the picture. Why not leave it where it is?”

   “Simon...” Isabelle’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “He has your mom. He could make her get it out for him.”

   Simon froze.

   _Do you think Valentine_ listens _when your mother begs him not to –_

   He took a deep breath. “All right.”

   A pause. “That’s it?” Alec asked, surprised. “You change your mind just like that?”

   Simon turned and stared at him.

   “Alec,” Hodge said gently, “what if it was Maryse?”

   “We’re going to need a car,” Jace interjected quickly. He was clearly trying to change the subject; Simon let him, looking away from Alec and towards his _erastes_. “Preferably a big one.”

   “Why?” asked Isabelle. “We’ve never needed one before.”

   “We’ve never had to worry about having an immeasurably precious object with us before. I don’t want to haul it on the L train.”

   “There’s taxis,” Isabelle parried. “Rental vans.” 

   “No,” Jace said. “I want an environment we control. I don’t want to deal with taxi drivers or mundane rental companies when we’re doing something this important.”

   “I have a car.” Simon’s voice surprised him; it sounded hoarse, and he swallowed before trying again. “Or, there’s one I can use. A van.”

  Jace’s nose wrinkled. “That hideous yellow thing?”

   “No, the bright blue phone box I keep in my pocket,” Simon snapped. “Yes, the yellow thing!”

   “I suppose it will do,” Jace said reluctantly.

   Isabelle rolled her eyes.

   “The four of you should leave in the morning,” Hodge said.

   “If it’s for my mom, I’d rather go tonight,” Simon countered.

   “Nevertheless,” the tutor said calmly, “it’s growing dark. Anything you might encounter will be stronger at night. It would be safer to go tomorrow, when you are all fresh and rested.”

   Simon struggled with an instinctive protest, but he couldn’t deny that what Hodge said made sense. “Fine,” he said with ill grace. He shoved his chair back from the table and got to his feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m full. I’m going to call Clary.” He left them without looking back, stalking away to his room.

*

   “No problem,” Clary assured him. “I’ll head over to Eric’s first thing tomorrow and drive the van down to you.” She paused. “Should I brush up on my Latin?”

   “I don’t think we’re expecting to meet any demons, no.” Simon stared up at the ceiling, his phone clutched to his ear. His vision was solid, but he could feel the world trembling, vibrating. Flickers of silver and jade licked over the underside of his skin, brushing unchaste snowflake kisses against his veins. He tried to resist their attentions, the pull of the thing Jace called a battle trance, but he could feel the door beckoning. “Digging out your Star of David might not be the worst idea, though.”

   “Noted. So how come you guys aren’t going tonight?”

   “Less dangerous to go tomorrow, apparently. I don’t think demons like sunlight,” he said, remembering what Dorothea had said on the subject. “Maybe other monsters don’t either.”

   “Makes sense.” She hesitated. “Simon, you know giving Valentine the Cup won’t work, don’t you?” she blurted. “It never does. In the history of ever, there has never been a bad guy who didn’t double cross the swap.”

   “I know. We’re not planning on giving it to Valentine. I don’t – ”

   Someone knocked at the door. Simon sat up abruptly, awhirl with emotion. “Clary, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

   “Be safe.”

   Simon snapped the phone shut and pushed it into his pocket. “Come in.”

   He wasn’t surprised to see Jace when the door opened. At the sight of him he heard Jace say that word again – _Ya’aburnee_ , soft and raw as if it had been torn from him. A velvet caress against the inside of Simon’s skull and a silver sphere in his throat, blocking his air.

   “You forgot dessert.” Jace held up a white bowl. The steam that rose beguilingly from it smelled like baking cookies. “Clearly that was not intentional, so I thought I’d bring it up to you.”

   “You are truly a prize,” Simon said automatically. He was, as well; Jace had even put a scoop of vanilla ice cream into the bowl, which only highlighted the deliciousness of the warm cookie dough.

   For a while there was no need to talk. Simon lay on his stomach on the bed, and Jace perched on its edge, the two of them sitting in silence as they demolished the dessert with long handled spoons. It should have been companionable, easy, but it wasn’t: the Arabic word ran around and round Simon’s mind, echoing like a struck bell. After a bit he set his spoon down: his stomach was twisted too tightly to eat.

   He took the plunge.  “Alec told me what the Clave might to do to you,” he said quickly, before his nerve could fail him. “I said I’d talk to you about it.”

   Jace stilled. Even now, Simon found the bandwidth to be fascinated. He’d seen Jace do it before, and Isabelle, but it was just unreal, the way Shadowhunters could sink into such utter stillness. For a moment he wasn’t sure Jace even breathed.

   “This is a new experience for me,” Jace mused, breaking the silence. “I’ve never had someone give me the ‘we need to talk’ line before.”

   “I’m _not_ breaking up with you,” Simon said hurriedly. He swallowed. “Unless – you want to, I guess.” He shook his head, frustrated. “Look, I just – I want you to know that I know, okay? What you’re risking, for us.” _Everything._ He exhaled and went on. “I’m not going to lie, it’s a pretty big ego boost. But – are you sure?”

   “Is anyone ever really sure of anything?” Jace asked philosophically. “The human race can’t even make up its mind as to whether it even exists. Descartes said ‘I think, therefore – ’ ”

   “ _Jace._ ” Despite himself, Simon couldn’t help grinning. “I’m being serious.”

   “No, you’re not.” Jace put his spoon down in the bowl and slid onto his knees on the floor, so their faces were at the same height. Simon was suddenly very aware of the fact that they were on a bed. He shivered a little when Jace reached up, his callused hands gently cupping Simon’s face as he leaned in and brushed their lips together in a feather-light kiss. “You’re trying to ask me,” he breathed against Simon’s mouth, “if I think you’re worth a world.”

   Simon swallowed hard. Touching Jace was like being plugged into the mains – Simon couldn’t help but sing, feeling the blond’s wild gold twist and sear through Simon’s copper veins, lighting up cell after cell. “Do you?” he whispered.

   Jace smiled slowly. “You already know the answer to that.” He kissed Simon again, lightly, and pulled away. “Now, you should finish your dessert. Alec and Izzy are coming up in a minute to watch more movies.”

*

   That night, Simon slept alone for the first time in days, and even Jace’s presence on the other side of the wall couldn’t make the darkness any lighter.

   Staring up at the ceiling, Simon saw, over and over, his mom smiling in the silk dress she’d worn in his dream. He saw the Ace of Cups being torn from his fingers. He saw the blood form Jocelyn’s _telesma_ , in red, dark lines.

   _I’m coming to get you, mom. I swear, I’ll get you home safe._

   He fell asleep clutching a fully extended Simiel under his pillow.

*

   They gathered in the library at dawn, the four teenagers all in black and Hodge watching beneficently from behind his desk, Hugo picking at the remains of the Shadowhunters’ quick breakfast. Isabelle was winding her glittering whip around her left wrist, where Simon wore his _armask_ _ō_ blade back in the vambrace. His other seraph swords were hidden in the belt at his waist. Alec had a quiver of arrows lashed across his shoulder and a leather bracer sheathing his right arm. He gave Simon a short nod – of acceptance? Respect? Simon couldn’t tell – before moving to start drawing Marks on Jace. He and Isabelle were already covered in them, dark and bright as Chinese calligraphy.

   “Their runes are stronger that way,” Isabelle said. Simon jumped: he hadn’t seen her move, but now she was standing right next to him. She nodded her chin at the boys. “Because they’re _parabatai_. When they draw runes for each other, they’re stronger than if someone else Marked them.”

   “Interesting,” Simon said absently. Jace was laughing at something Alec had said. He had the sleeve of his jacket rolled up, his chin on his shoulder. Alec was smiling.

   Simon pushed his hand into his jacket pocket. Unwilling to leave his _armask_ _ō_ cuff behind but unable to wear it with the vambraces, he’d slipped the bracelet into his pocket when he dressed, and now without thinking he brushed his thumb over the metal-and-crystal stars, fingering the leather and the smooth, soothing twist of the wire clasp as Alec and Jace bickered.

   “Come on, Alec, it’s a basic _iratze_ ,” Jace said, clearly teasing despite the slight strain in his face. Remembering how it had felt to have the glamour rune drawn on him, Simon wasn’t surprised. “By the Angel, how hard can it – ”

   “I’m trying to be careful.” Alec swatted Jace’s other shoulder without looking away from his task. “Stop moving.”

    Jace grinned, but kept still until Alec released him. “ _Finally_. Thanks.” He lowered his arm, flexing his fingers. Alec hid a smile like a candleflame behind stained glass, and busied himself with his arrows as Jace turned to Simon. “You have all your blades?”

   Isabelle smirked. “You always did like girls killing things, Jace. I guess now it’s Simon who gets you all hot and bothered.”

   Alec stiffened.

   “I like anyone killing things,” Jace said lightly. “Especially me.”

   Simon rolled his eyes. “I do have them. And we should get going.”

   Hodge rose from his chair. He looked tired – tired and old. “May the Angel watch over you all,” he said, and Hugo alighted from his shoulder with a loud cawing, disappearing into the shadows of the peaked ceiling like a dark angel.

*

   “Oh, no. _No._ One mundane is enough!” Alec protested, seeing who was driving the van. He jabbed his finger at Clary, who waved regally in response. “She is _not_ coming!”

   “Fine. But you’re the one telling her.” Simon smiled sweetly at Alec’s expression. The older boy seemed to have swallowed a lemon, or maybe his tongue. “If you dare.”

   Alec spluttered. Jace was trying very hard not to laugh. “You know what they say, Alec,” he murmured, low enough that the rest of them could pretend not to hear. “Don’t mess with a red-head.”

   “But what’s she _doing_ here?” Alec asked plaintively.

   “How else was I going to get the van here?” Simon asked. “It’s not like I could wave a wand and summon it. Besides, you hate magic!”

   “Fly it like Ron and Harry did?” Isabelle suggested.

   “Also magic,” Simon reminded her.

   Clary rolled down the window and stuck her head out. “Get in, losers, we’re going demon-hunting!”

   Simon laughed. The others all just stared at her, bewildered. “No we’re not,” Alec said warily.

   Jace looked up at the sky. “Are all mundanes this crazy,” he asked the heavens, “or did we just get lucky?”

   Swallowing his laughter, Simon grinned and punched his shoulder. “You got damn lucky, and you should be grateful to be in the presence of such awesomeness. Now get in.”

   “I was kind of hoping it would have magically changed colour,” Jace sighed, but he was grinning too as he climbed into the back of the van.

   Simon couldn’t blame him for his hope. The van was...most unfortunate looking. Eric had, in a moment of whimsy that had possibly occurred under the influence of weed, painted the entire thing neon yellow. Since then it had become spotted with rust, so that now it looked like nothing so much as a giant rotting banana.

   Oh well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.  

   “Nice bow,” Clary told Alec, nodding approvingly.

   Alec paused in the middle of getting into the van. “Are you an archer?” His scathing expression and dubious tone said that he highly doubted it.

   Clary smiled at him. “You could say that.”

   Alec opened his mouth to reply, but Jace leaned out of the van and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t,” he said lowly, so that Simon wouldn’t have heard him if he hadn’t strained to listen. “Simon’s an incredible shot. It wouldn’t surprise me if she is too.”

   Looking slightly stunned, Alec glanced at Simon. Simon smiled and shooed him into his seat.

   “Did I hear you say they don’t like magic?” Clary asked as Simon settled into shot gun. “What about their tattoos?”

   “They are _not_ tattoos,” Jace growled, “and they are _not_ magic!”

   “Don’t listen to them, they’re in denial,” Simon told her. “They’re totally magic.”

   “Simon!”

   Clary and Simon exchanged identical grins.

   The Shadowhunters settled themselves and their arsenal, and Clary started the engine just as it began to rain. The sky was still dim, the sunrise struggling to pierce the storm clouds, and Simon wondered if this was what it would have felt like on Noah’s Ark, this small bastion of light and warmth amidst all the watery shadows. Jace, Isabelle and Alec discussed tactics in low voices; Simon turned on the radio, but left it quiet.

   “You know, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said suddenly as Clary turned onto the FDR parkway, the highway that ran alongside the East River. “You were dancing with that faerie girl at Magnus’ party the other night.”

   “That’s a statement, not a question,” Clary commented, unfazed.

   Simon gave her a wry look. “Okay, smart-ass, here’s my question. Do you like girls?”

   “Well _sure_ I like girls, Simon,” she drawled, smirking. “I like all kinds of things. I like video games and Sailor Moon and Wincest, I like liquorice, I like Indian bridal jewellery, I like Fallout Boy...” She glanced across at him. “Why don’t you ask what you really mean?”

   Simon frowned, confused. “Which is what?”

   “Did I turn you down because I’m a lesbian.”

   “Uh...” He paused. “To be honest, that did not occur to me.”

   Her eyebrows rose. “Really?”

   “It occurred to _me_ ,” Jace said under his breath, not quite low enough to be inaudible.

   Simon turned around in his seat, grinning. “Aw. Thank you, snookums. You say the sweetest things.”

   Alec made choking noises as his sister giggled.

   “But no,” Simon continued, turning back to his best friend, “I figured that you knew all my flaws and dirty secrets, and knew you could do better.”

   Jace muttered again, but this time Simon couldn’t make out what he said. He couldn’t help grinning like an idiot anyway.

   Clary glanced in the rear-view mirror. She was smiling too. “You know, you might just be salvageable yet, Wayland.”

   “This is a very strange conversation,” Isabelle commented. “But do please continue. It’s fascinating.”

   “Next time, you can all watch the iPad in the back like good little kids.” Simon sighed, more than half-wishing he’d brought it to keep them occupied, and amused by the thought. “You can tell me to fuck off,” he told Clary. “If you don’t want to talk about it.”

   “It’s true, it’s not really any of your business,” Clary agreed. But she didn’t sound annoyed. She glanced at his face, and took pity on him. “Do I like girls? I don’t know. I liked _her._ Olianthe.” She shrugged. “I’m not really interested in sticking a label on it.”

   Simon nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

   Isabelle abruptly darted forward, resting her elbows on the shoulders of Clary’s and Simon’s seats. “Did you say _Olianthe?_ ” she demanded.

   Clary blinked. “Yeah? Why?”

   “By the _Angel_.” She fell back into her seat, her eyes raised to heaven. “We can’t take you two _anywhere._ _You_ – ” She pointed a manicured fingernail at the back of Simon’s head, “go and seduce a scion of the First Families in your first week as a Nephilim – ”

   Jace spluttered. _“Excuse me?”_

   “ – and _you_ ,” Isabelle continued without pause for the interruption, turning her attention to Clary, “you make out with a faerie princess! At your very first Shadow World party!” She threw up her hands. “Mundanes ought to be kept on _leashes!_ ”

   Now, there was an idea... Simon bit his tongue sharply to clear his mind’s eye, his cheeks flushing a little. Then his brain caught up to what Isabelle had just said. “There was making out?”

   Without taking her eyes off the road Clary leaned over and swatted him.

   “Ow!”

   “Of course she was a princess,” Clary said calmly, ignoring him. “This does not surprise me in the least. Have you seen me? I am stunningly attractive. Obviously only royalty is good enough for this face.”

   Everyone considered this for a moment.

   “You know, I think you and I are going to be very good friends,” Isabelle decided.

   Clary smirked.

   In the back, Alec groaned. “I don’t think we need to worry about Valentine,” he said mournfully. “These two will have conquered the world before he ever gets the chance.”

   “The _universe_ ,” both girls corrected in unison. Their eyes met in the mirror, and they both burst out laughing.

   Simon grinned, turning to stare out the window at the rain. “Be afraid, Valentine,” he murmured only half playfully as Clary directed the van onto the Manhattan Bridge, and towards home. “Be very, very afraid...”

*

   The rain had been reduced to a light drizzle by the time Clary pulled up in front of Simon’s house. Sunlight was spilling through the clouds in long, watery beams, growing stronger and brighter even as the Shadowhunters clambered out of the van. Simon and Clary were ordered to wait while the others scoured the outside of the building with their Sensors, checking for signs of demonic activity.

   Within minutes, they gave the all clear. “Low activity,” Jace informed them when the Shadowhunters came back. “Probably just the Forsaken, and they might not even bother us unless we get into the upstairs apartment.”

    “But Simon’s copy of _The Deathly Hallows_ is in there!” Isabelle protested.

   Alec gave his sister a bemused look.

   Simon was no longer in the mood for laughter. He rubbed his thumb over Simiel absently, looking up at the house and wondering what they were going to find in it. Forsaken were bad enough, in his opinion. He admired them all, Jace and Alec and Isabelle, but he had no idea how they could be so blasé about walking into danger.

   Maybe Shadowhunters were all insane. It would explain a lot.

   Alec heaved the canvas bag full of weaponry onto the sidewalk. “Ready to go,” he declared. “Let’s kick some demon butt!”

   Definitely insane. Even Jace eyed Alec sideways. “You all right?”

   “Fine. I’m fine.” Alec paused, then set aside his bow and quiver. Instead he picked up a polished featherstaff of dark wood, the kind of thing Simon had only seen in WoW. “This is better,” Alec said, two shining blades springing from the ends of the staff at a touch of his fingers.

   “But the bow...” Isabelle glanced at it, concerned. “Are you sure?”

   “I know what I’m doing, Isabelle.” Alec spun the staff slowly, his face set.

   Clary shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want it.” She twisted out of her seat and snatched it up – and froze like a startled deer as a group of young mothers passed the van, pushing a cluster of strollers towards the park. They were laughing – which Simon didn’t understand, given the time of day; who wouldn’t be in bed at this hour if they could? – but they didn’t so much as glance at the Shadowhunters armed to the teeth on the pavement.

   “What the hell?” Clary stared after them, then looked back at the assembled Nephilim. “You guys are glamoured? But I can see you!”

   Something sharp flashed across Alec’s face, and his hand flew to his pocket as Jace said “Yes, but you know the truth of what you’re looking at.”

   “Alec?” Isabelle asked. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

   “Nothing,” Alec said quickly. His cheeks were flushed. He hesitated a moment, then abruptly pulled something out of his pocket and strode over to the van, shoving his closed his fist towards Clary.

   Simon snapped forward, thinking Alec was going to punch her, but he only uncurled his fingers to her. “I – this is for you.”

   They all stared at him. Slowly, as if it might explode if she made any sudden movements, Clary reached out and picked up the round thing on Alec’s palm. It was a stone, a rough circle like the one Simon made by putting his forefinger and thumb together. A spill of silver fell from it; a chain with thick, strong links.

   “Um...thank you?”

   Alec’s blush deepened; he stepped back hurriedly. “It’s not from me. It’s from Magnus.”

   Isabelle’s expression suddenly morphed from confusion to smugness. Clary’s eyebrows made for the sky. “The sparkly guy gave me a present?”

    “When did you see Magnus?” Jace demanded.

   “He came to the Institute. To give me that. For Clary.” Alec wouldn’t meet Jace’s eyes. Jace frowned.

   “What is it?” Simon interrupted.

   “A faerie stone.” Isabelle plucked it from Clary’s fingers and let it dangle from its chain. The stone spun slowly. “If you look through it you can see the Shadow World. See through any glamour. One this size is _priceless_.”

   Clary snatched it back from her and immediately put it to her eye. She scrutinised Jace carefully; Jace, amused, held still and let her.

   After a moment or two Clary sighed, dropping the stone and slipping the necklace over her head. “Well, either it’s a dud or you really are that good-looking.”

   Simon choked. Isabelle laughed. “ _Best_ friends,” she grinned.

   Clary looked at her, charmed. “I think I could live with that.”

   “Hey!” Simon protested.

   “Best _girl_ friends,” Clary corrected.

   Alec seemed to have recovered from his embarrassment. “Are we doing this or not?” he demanded, hefting his staff.

   “By all means,” Clary said, turning to him. Grasping the bow again, she hopped out of the van at last and onto the sidewalk. “Let’s do this thing.”

   Jace blocked her path. “Where do you think you’re going?”

   Simon dived for cover behind Isabelle.

   Clary fixed Jace with a cool stare. “With you, of course.”

   “There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” he said. “I wouldn’t even be taking Simon if we didn’t need him to draw the _telesma_ , and you have less training than he does.”

   Clary drew herself up. “And you’re going to stop me, I suppose?” she asked dangerously.

   Jace smirked.

   Rolling her eyes, Isabelle stepped in before Clary could explode, patting Simon’s shoulder reassuringly. “Someone has to stay with the van,” she told Clary. “It’s not a nothing job, it’s important. Sunlight’s fatal to demons, but not to Forsaken. If they chase us out here, the engine needs to be running. Or what if the van gets towed?”

   Grudgingly, Clary acquiesced to this logic. But she had one parting shot for Jace. “I take back what I said about you being good-looking.”

   “You can take back saying it, but you can’t make it untrue,” he replied smugly.

   Alec looked back and forth between them as Clary climbed back into the van, grumbling. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “in another world, I could see the two of you getting together. You have all this...” He gestured vaguely. _“Tension.”_

   They both turned to him with matching expressions of horror.

   Alec held up his hands in surrender. “Just a thought!”

   Would Alec have been happier if Jace had fallen for Clary instead of Simon? Simon shrugged, dismissing the question. He should be focussing on remembering the _telesma_ correctly...

   The smell, when they walked through the front door, was like being punched in the face. Simon had never smelled anything like it: it was disgusting, reminiscent of rotting garbage in a heat wave, but infinitely worse. He gagged, but beside him Jace inhaled deeply, a smile at the corner of his lips as if the scent was something sweet to be savoured. “Demons have been here,” he announced, his eyes gleaming with a cool joy that was at once unnerving and compelling. “Recently, too.”

   But they weren’t here now. Still, Simon unhitched Simiel from its setting in his vambrace and folded his gloved hand around it. It was eerily quiet; he thought he could hear his heartbeat.

   He thought he could hear _Jace’s_. But he had to be imagining it.

   Taking a deep breath, Simon strode across the foyer towards Dorothea’s door, glancing up warily at the upstairs landing. He still remembered how the Forsaken had come bursting out; remembered seeing that Jace was about to fall and plunging Simiel into the creature’s back to avert it.

   He remembered the sickening crunch, and the smell of the blood.

   The entry way was still dark – with Jocelyn gone, no Luke had been visiting to do all Dorothea’s odd jobs, and the skylight was still grimy with dirt, the lightbulb still out and awaiting a replacement. It meant that the four of them moved through heavy shadow, thick and almost moist with the heat and lit only by the brightly glowing stone that Jace held out in front of him.

   “Witchlight,” he said at Simon’s questioning glance.

   Simon looked away. His insides were twisting and untwisting, but he didn’t know why he was so on edge.

   They reached Dorothea’s door, and Simon knocked on it.

   Almost instantly it swung inward. The seeress drew herself up, a regal vision somewhat spoiled by the bright orange and green of her outfit, which brought to mind unfortunate comparisons to pumpkins. Her neon yellow turban was outlined by the golden light that spilled past her and into the foyer, and her chandelier earrings glittered and sparkled distractingly. Her large feet were entirely bare.

   Except for her toe nails. Those were a surprisingly tasteful pale pink.

   “Simon!”

   Simon had no chance to react before he was engulfed in Madame Dorothea’s voluptuous embrace. For a moment he thought he was going to be smothered in the folds of velvet-clad flesh, and he tried to flail for air.

   “Good Lord, boy,” said the witch, taking the hint and releasing him. Simon gasped, inhaling precious oxygen greedily. “The last time I saw you, you were off to battle! And now look at you!” She looked him up and down, clearly not liking what she saw. “Got you dressed up as one of them now, have they?”

   “Yes, Madame Dorothea.” Impulsively he added “But I still think the Clave are dicks.”

   She hooted. “You tell ‘em, boy! Now come in, come in.” She ushered them all inside, clucking her tongue at Simon’s gear. “Shame. Such a crying shame,” she muttered.

   Nothing seemed to have changed since Simon’s last visit. The same quasi-magical (or maybe really magical, what did Simon know?) bric-a-brac was scattered over every available surface. The smell of incense was even thicker than before, if that was possible, making the air smoky and interesting to breathe, but at least it was better than the demon-smog outside.

   Dorothea lowered herself into an armchair. The crystal ball and tarot deck were on the table in front of her; Simon resisted the urge to lunge for the cards. He knew there was no way they could trade the Cup for Jocelyn, but something inside him still equated the Ace of Cups with his mother’s safe return. The Cup was the quest object; once they had it, everything was supposed to fall into place, magically solved, a happy ending wrapped up in a _New High Score!_

   It wasn’t going to be that easy. But it was difficult to remember that.

   “I take it you haven’t located your mother?” Dorothea asked, settling herself more comfortably in her perch. The grandmotherly air had disappeared, replaced by a sharp, intense scrutiny.

   “No. But we know who took her.” Simon forced himself to stop imagining happy endings and met Dorothea’s gaze squarely. The Lightwoods were examining one of the divinatory posters on the walls, and Jace lounged indolently against a chair arm, but Simon knew that despite appearances all three of them were paying close attention. “Valentine.”

   The seeress hurrumphed. “I feared as much. Do you know what he wants with her?”

   “He thinks she has the Mortal Cup. Or knows where it is.” Simon paused as something occurred to him. “Do you know what that is?”

   Dorothea leaned back as if struck. “Of course I know what it is!” she exclaimed. “The Cup of the Angel. Raziel’s Cup, in which he mixed the blood of angels and the blood of men and gave of this mixture to a man to drink, and created the first Shadowhunter!”

   “That would be the one,” Jace said mildly.

   “Why on earth would he think Jocelyn had it?” Dorothea demanded, clearly baffled. “Of all people...” Suddenly her eyes widened, and she fixed Simon with a piercing look. “Unless she wasn’t Jocelyn Fray at all. She was the wife, wasn’t she? Jocelyn Fairchild, the one everyone thought died. She took the Cup and fled with it, didn’t she?”

   Something about the look in her eyes made Simon uneasy, but before he could do more than nod Dorothea lowered her gaze, her expression turning thoughtful. Or was that avarice? “So,” she said, “do you know what you’re going to do now? Wherever she’s hidden it, it can’t be easy to find – if you even want it found. Valentine could do terrible things with his hands on that Cup.”

   “That’s why we’re here,” Simon said, recovering himself. “My mom gave the Cup to you. I don’t think you knew that; I think she didn’t tell you what you had so that you’d be safer.”

   “She gave it to you disguised,” Jace explained, “in the form of a gift.”

   Dorothea frowned blankly at him. “I beg your pardon?”

   Simon pointed at the deck of cards. “The tarot deck my mom painted for you. She hid the Cup in it.”

   “She – ?” Dorothea’s gaze fairly flew to the deck, lying wrapped in its silk cloth on the table. Her eyes gleamed, and she reached for them, but Simon was faster. Without thinking, he snatched the deck from beneath her fingers and retreated a few steps away from the table with them. The witch scowled, but said nothing as Simon put Simiel in his pocket so he could unwrap the cards.

   This time, it was different. This time he felt the electric thrill of power in the runes painted on the back of the cards, almost vibrating against his fingertips. Their music was subtler, quieter; the hum of a child trying not to be noticed. _Look away, not here, nothingness, la la la..._ He didn’t listen to it: he fanned the cards and plucked out the Ace of Cups. For a moment he felt like he was back in the dream – as if this were only a momentary pause, and in a minute the music would start again, and he and Jace would return to their dance.

   As if his mom would be smiling in front of him when he looked up from the card.

   She wasn’t, of course. But Simon’s throat tightened with disappointment he couldn’t help. “This is it,” he managed, flipping the card around so Jace could see it. Alec and Isabelle had stopped pretending to look at the posters and had turned to look; hushed, expectant, a little reverent, as if they expected Raziel himself to come bursting out of the card.

   Simon moved forward and placed the rest of the deck back on the table.

   “It’s only a picture,” Dorothea said. She sounded disappointed. Simon forgot about being polite and ignored her; he turned the card back over and stared at the familiar brush strokes of his mother’s artwork. It looked just like it had in the dream: the gilt of the Cup, the hand that was both strong and slender curled around its stem... It wasn’t Jocelyn’s hand. Had she used a model, or her imagination?

   “Simon can get it out of the painting.” Jace stepped forward, his stele a silvery wand between his fingers. He spun it and proffered it to Simon handle-first.

   Simon took it absently, without looking away from the card. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “But...maybe I shouldn’t yet.” The inside of his skull felt like a beehive on speed. A card was easier to hide than a goblet; it was also much easier to destroy, if they were ambushed on their way back to the Institute and it was a choice between setting it on fire or letting Valentine’s minions steal it. And – it made his bones frost over to think of it, but even if Valentine’s goons got hold of the card, Simon didn’t think they would find it easy to convince Jocelyn to get the Cup out of it for them.

   _Do you think Valentine_ listens _when your mother begs him not to –_

   Simon shoved the card into the inside pocket of his jacket, roughly. The Shadowhunters all winced. “ _Please_ be careful,” Jace drawled. “It’s only a priceless relic of godly powers.”

   Simon ignored them. “I’ll get it out when we reach the Institute,” he said, handing Jace back his stele.

   “Would you like to use the Portal?” Dorothea asked suddenly. Her eyes were bright, like sunlight on new coins, and her dangling earrings shivered, as if the witch were trembling imperceptibly. “It’s so early – you must all be so tired. It would be a much quicker way of getting home.”

   Her voice had turned as sweet as a caramel apple, and Simon’s skin crawled. For no reason he could put his finger on, he thought of the wicked witch inviting Hansel and Gretel into her house of candy, and Snow White’s evil step-mother.

   _Beneath that caramel is poison._ He could not say how he knew that – his certainty was a cold, dead finger touching the back of his throat – but the others had all come alert, and he knew they felt it too.

   “Thank you,” Jace said coolly, his amber eyes narrowed, “but we’ll have to decline. We have a ride waiting for us, you see.”

   “Oh, but I really must insist.” Dorothea rose from her chair; Simon instinctively took a step back. “I couldn’t possibly allow Simon to go tearing about the city at this hour, when there’s a much better option available.” She didn’t sound like herself. Simon had known Madame Dorothea for years and years, and she didn’t speak like this. Her diction, her choice of words – everything was all off, and the hairs on the back of Simon’s neck were standing to attention and the thick, disgusting smell of demons suddenly seemed stronger. “He’ll get run down and ill. Or – who knows? Anything could happen to him, and his father would never forgive me.”

   “My _what?_ ” Simon asked, incredulous, just as Jace said sharply “Don’t touch that!”

   Too late. Faster than thought Dorothea ripped down the heavy velvet curtains hanging along the wall, and Simon barely heard the dull, thick sound of them hitting the floor because the Portal behind them was open and full of blinding blue light and thick, oily red shadows fragmented by black lightning and –

   The darkness came rushing out of the Portal with an inhuman scream.

* * *

NOTES

 _Telesma_ is the Byzantine Greek word for ‘talisman’. _Talesmes_ is the plural form.

 _Dam habrit ava yoter mimayim shel harehem_ – the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Thanks to anon for the translation help!

A transducer is a machine that converts one form of energy into another. There are transducers in phones to turn sound energy into electrical energy and back again, for example.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you not watching my tumblr (siavahdainthemoon) and who thus missed my warning – I’m taking a little break after this chapter. Probably not hugely long – two weeks, maybe – but this chapter took a LOT out of me. I didn’t sleep for two days because I was flat-out writing, and I was crying as I typed a lot of that time. THE FEELS, THEY WOULD NOT LET GO. Plus, this is more than twice as long as my usual chapters – on average this fic’s chapters hit around ten A4 pages in Word. This time you get twenty-one, because I could not stop writing and my beta and I could not agree on a good place to cut it in two.
> 
> Plus-plus, my hubby is coming back from his trip on the 15th and I want to have some cuddle time without worrying about the Tuesday deadlines. I’m going to catch up on sleep and my reading and just relax for a little bit.
> 
> Plus-plus-plus, I am an evil, evil bitch who likes to leave you with evil, evil cliffhangers. MWAH HA HA.
> 
> ENJOY!

   “Get down!” Jace roared. He grabbed Simon’s shoulder and shoved him to the floor, flinging himself down alongside him just as the howling darkness struck Dorothea like a cyclone. Simon heard her scream and knew he would hear it in his nightmares forever – the high, shrill sound of someone being stripped of everything that made them human, turned into an animal by agony. It punched into Simon’s lizard brain and his stomach heaved and he could see it, see the whirlwind of wrongness spin around Dorothea, whipping and storming, raging, tearing the posters from the walls and overturning the chairs, ripping the witch’s turban away so that for a bare instant her crystalline hair was free and spread around her head like a halo. And then the darkness swallowed her whole, but she was still visible through the blood-red shadows like a form through a back-lit curtain, and Simon stared in disbelief as Jace swore next to him and Dorothea –

   Twisted, morphed, _changed_ , and she was still screaming –

   “ _You said the levels were low!_ ” Alec shouted over the wind.

   “They _were_ ,” Jace snarled. He held his hand between Simon’s shoulders, making sure he stayed down.

   “Your version of low must be different from mine!”

   Dorothea was growing larger, and Simon could hear sickening cracks and snaps that he abruptly realised were probably her bones breaking. The shape behind the shadows – Simon felt bile in the back of his throat and struggled not to throw up. Wrong wrong _wrong._ There was no way to tell if it was his Nephilim blood reacting to something demonic or if it was something deeper screaming that nothing human was meant to be that shape, but Simon couldn’t look any more, or he really would be sick –

   Abruptly Jace shot upright, fisting a hand in Simon’s jacket to drag him up too. Isabelle and Alec scrambled unsteadily to their feet; it was the first time Simon had ever seen Isabelle look pale, but the hand on her whip was steady. Alec’s featherstaff was trembling.

   _“Move_ , you idiots!” Jace used his grip on Simon’s jacket to hurl him towards the door; Simon stumbled and ran, the others close on his heels. He snatched Simiel out of his pocket as they shot out into the foyer, Isabelle outstripping them all and flying for the door.

   “It’s locked,” she announced, spinning back to face them with a wild look in her eyes. “I can’t get it open – it must be a spell – ”

   Jace whipped out his stele, but before he could do more than step towards the door everything exploded. All four of them were hurled to the floor as the building shook, and then the wall blew – Simon ducked his head under his arms as bits of flying wood and brick and plaster burst everywhere. Something hit his back hard, but the plating in his jacket turned it into a bruise instead of a broken rib and he rolled away from the impact, gasping.

   “Simon!” Isabelle shouted, and Simon looked up and nearly screamed. The wall that had exploded had been that between Dorothea’s apartment and the foyer, and he’d rolled closer to it, to the gaping hole through which some _thing_ was climbing, something so terrible that his mind could only process glimpses of it – ten, twelve feet tall, wisps of silk around its arms that were the remains of Dorothea’s turban, a hand with too many clawed fingers _that was reaching for him –_

   He scrambled backwards desperately but clumsily, not fast enough, the hand closed around his leg and a supernova exploded in his head and he screamed. He forgot the monster, forgot everything, Jace-Izzy-Alec and the card in his pocket – he clutched his skull and _screamed_ , something shredding his brain like paper, flashes of blinding light and colours and music that shattered his eardrums, music like knives and sulphur and blood, like everything good and right ripped apart and turned inside out and it was _agony_ , pain like Dorothea must have felt, pain like being unmade, that made you _beg_ to be unmade just so you could stop feeling this, _please let me stop feeling this_ and the world spun around him and Simon couldn’t notice, didn’t care, let the demon have him let it _kill_ him oh god anything anything to make it stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP, he would have given up the Cup in an instant if anything had existed beyond the pain. He stopped screaming only because he was suddenly choking, coppery blood in his throat and on his tongue and he was upside-down and convulsing and there were no words for it, no words, he couldn’t remember where he was or what he was or what his name was he just wanted it to stop, stop, STOP –

   It snapped. Something human and vital shattered like glass and the door in his head broke and the thing that came roaring out spread wings black as night and opened Simon’s eyes, snarled “ _Simiel_ ” with his lips and the blade had fallen somewhere but it flew to his hand like metal to Magneto and he jack-knifed, hanging upside-down from the demon’s hand he plunged the seraph blade into its wrist and it shrieked and the monster in Simon’s head laughed and laughed with ichor on his lips –

   The demon let him go, and Simon twisted in midair, landing in a cat-like crouch with one hand on the floor and the other clutching his sword. The thud of hitting the ground shocked his mind free and the thing inside him fled like a ghost, back through the door in his skull and Simon slid sideways and collapsed, Simiel tumbling from his fingers.

   He woke up just a few seconds later, his mouth thick with the taste of blood. Alec was standing over him, braced with his featherstaff and Simon blinked and blinked because there was red blurriness obscuring his vision.

   He reached up to wipe it away, and his fingers came back covered in blood. Not black ichor, but his own blood. He’d been bleeding from his eyes.

   And his mouth, and nose, and ears. His chin and neck were covered in it.

   Jace and Isabelle were fighting, swords and whip flashing like shooting stars. Simon could see the demon now, could see the thick black bones breaking through mottled skin, the dark sores weeping green and black, claws like scythes and empty eye-sockets that opened onto blackness – not raw red flesh, but space, as if it held a black hole inside its skull. And that was what caught sight of Simon, its head snapping to him like a pointer dog. It lost interest in Isabelle and Jace, stepping past them, towards Alec and Simon –

   Except Jace was there, a seraph sword in each hand, the blades long and thin like katanas. “Don’t even think about it.”

   The demon turned its attention to the blond, and something in Simon lurched with protective panic, instantly wanting to sweep Jace away where that thing couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see him. “Give me,” the demon said, and its voice brought the taste of blood into Simon’s mouth again, made his ears ring with the echo of that screamingly horrible music, “the Cup, and the singer, and I will let you live.”

   “No can do, sorry,” Jace answered evenly. “We’re quite partial to him, he’s wonderful at children’s parties. Besides, we don’t let him mix with riff-raff. ”

   The demon did something with its mouth that might have been a smile; it made Simon want to vomit. “I am Abbadon. I am the Demon of the Abyss. Mine are the empty places between the worlds. Mine is the wind and the howling darkness. I am as unlike those mewling things you call _demons_ as an eagle is unlike a fly. You cannot hope to defeat me. Give me what I want or die.”

   Isabelle sucked in a gasp; Simon saw Alec’s back tense. “Arm yourself,” Alec hissed quietly, and Simon didn’t ask how Alec knew he was awake, just did as he was told, fumbling for one of the seraph blades at his belt. He was struggling with Sandalphon when a noise made him turn his head, and despite everything he almost laughed; Simiel, in its sheathed dowel form, came rolling along the floor to stop beside him, somehow sheepish. Simon had the sense that it was embarrassed to have gotten lost. He snatched it up gratefully as Isabelle asked, her voice trembling, “What about the witch?”

   Abbadon swung its head to look at her. “She was a vessel only. She opened the Portal and I took possession of her. Her death was swift.” It smiled again. “Yours will not be.”

   “Oh, I don’t know,” Jace drawled, distracting it from Isabelle. “I think the smell might kill us quite quickly.”

   Abbadon hissed. Simon caught a quick glimpse of row after row of glass teeth.

   “And I’m not so sure about this wind and howling darkness business,” Jace continued. “Smells more like landfill to me. You sure you’re not from Staten Island?”

   “Very sure,” Abbadon said, and swatted him like a fly.

   “Jace!” Alec jerked forward as if pulled and Simon was on his feet before he’d decided to stand, before he’d realised that he could, and Isabelle’s whip whistled and connected. Abbadon ignored the weal it raised, and ignored Jace, who was cradling his arm with his face gone pained and fragile: the demon was wholly focussed on Simon, who bared his teeth and snarled. Alec started, glancing at him, and Simon wondered what he looked like, with the blood from his eyes and mouth all over his face but he didn’t care, it was back, the thing from beyond the door in his head, filling him up like mercury in a glass, Abbadon had hurt Jace and nothing else, nothing else in the _world_ mattered next to that –

   Abbadon chuckled at Simon’s snarl, amused as if by a puppy’s growl. Its laughter sounded like nails on a chalkboard. “You have some growing to do before you are any threat to me, fledgeling,” it said.

   “Yeah?” Simon heard himself say. “How’s your wrist?”

   The demon hissed, and Simon laughed, cold and mocking. The sound felt so strange coming out of his mouth that he mentally stumbled, and his trance-state faltered. “I think you are not the only one who can grant Valentine the Cup, little singer,” Abbadon said. “I think it would be best if you did not grow into your wings.”

   Before Simon could puzzle out what that meant, Abbadon lashed out, so inhumanly fast that its claws splintered the dim light. Simon had lost the trance, he had no time to move, to do anything but see those arm-length razors plunge down for him –

   Alec tackled him and Simon crashed to the floor yet again, the impact driving the breath from his lungs. Isabelle screamed her brother’s name as Abbadon’s claws caught Alec instead, embedding deep in his flesh so that he was lifted off the ground, impaled on the demon’s bladed fingers. Simon shoved to his feet, invoking Simiel with a shout and swinging at the wrist that held Alec in the air, but the demon only flung Alec away, carelessly, like an unwanted toy.

   He hit the far wall with a terrible _crunch_ , and lay still.

   Abbadon turned back to Simon, its mouth twisted into a rictus grin. Simon felt tiny in front of it, like David before Goliath on a day when God was busy elsewhere. Simon backed away, his heart a train in his throat.

   _Move. Move, or you’re going to die._

   Isabelle’s golden-silver whip suddenly licked around Abbadon’s throat, and the demon howled, its hands flying to its neck.

   “Simon, run!” Isabelle shouted. “It can’t get the Cup!”

   But he couldn’t move. He’d tranced when Jace was hurt but now he was weak again, his bones blades of grass stretched beneath cotton muscles. The memory of the agony that had bled out of his eyes murmured and whispered, an underwater river that could bring down the earth beneath your feet. Abbadon ripped the whip away with a snarl, its fingers scorched and hissing with smoke. It backhanded Isabelle, and her head snapped to the side as she fell. She didn’t get up.

   Simiel flared, bright and blinding, but something – something happened, when Abbadon looked at him. Simon’s heart skipped a beat and he breathed ice, his gaze locked inescapably with that darkness, the unending nexus in the demon’s eye sockets. His grip on Simiel loosened, and the blade clattered to the floor.

   Simon’s knees hit the ground a half-instant behind it.

   He didn’t see Jace finally look up from his _parabatai_ ’s injuries. He didn’t hear the blond shout his name, or see him come running to help; he didn’t see Abbadon’s sickening smirk or hear Jace’s cry of pain as he was hit, as he crashed into the stairs. Everything was blank.

   Empty.

   Simon’s body swayed, and his lips parted. Blind. He was falling – he was just a spark, tumbling down and down into the black hole that was Abbadon’s eyes, swallowed up inside it. It was so cold. So silent. The icy, quiet darkness slid inside him like smoke, into his eyes, his ears and nose, slipping into his mouth like a corpse’s kiss. It slid deeper and deeper, into his lungs, his veins, infecting everything, turning his light to ashes and silencing his music. A fist clenching shut around the song that was his heart, and his eyelids were falling as his breath grew slower, and slower, dissolving into the shadows...

   Distantly, he heard something: a bang that sounded muffled by distance. It meant nothing until Abbadon turned its head away with a hiss, and Simon rushed back to himself with a choked gasp.

   It was Clary. She was carrying Alec’s bow; her eyes swept over the scene once and she didn’t hesitate. She whipped an arrow from the quiver at her back and nocked it, drew back the string –

   It shot free like lightning, a silvery dart that flew above their heads, above Abbadon’s –

   And smashed the skylight into a hundred thousand pieces.

   Sunlight rushed in like a river, a golden flood, the falling glass sparkling like rain despite the muck and Abbadon screamed. It stumbled backwards, trying to cover its head with its arms, but there was no escape: the foyer was full of sunlight, waves and waves of it, and Simon stared in disbelief as the demon fell to the floor, shrieking, scrabbling and shaking like a rat in a trap. It dissolved and crumpled like dust in the wind, folding smaller and smaller just like the demon at Pandemonium had what felt like so long ago, and in minutes the monster that had come so close to killing them all had melted into nothing.

   Clary dropped the bow and ran to Simon. She dropped down on her knees beside him, her eyes terrified as she took in the blood all over his face.

   Simon smiled at her. “Told you I’d let you rescue me,” he said, and passed out.

*

   _Warmth. Softness. Simon hung suspended, floating embryonic in peace so perfect and all-encompassing that it was tangible, caressing his skin like silk. His veins were velvet, braided over shining silver bones. There was no air, but that was all right: he didn’t need to breathe._

_He opened his eyes. He was underwater, and it was night. The distant rumblings of thunder came to him, muffled by the waves; flashes of gold streaked the far-away sky, painting gold threads with brief lives on his skin. The stripes of light were growing smaller and smaller as he sank deeper into the water, pulled down by the anchor tied to his ankle, an anchor as black as Abbadon’s bones – but he felt no fear. There was something waiting at the bottom of the ocean, something terrible and wonderful, something that would make it all worth it. A star hidden beneath the coral like an undersea volcano, and it would tell him his name._

_He twisted in the water, trying to look over his shoulder and down into the depths for the star, but something passed over him. He looked up instead, in time to see the shadow of wings suddenly block out the lightning. Someone or something settled on the surface of the waves, but Simon couldn’t make it out, could only see the wings and a shadowed face as a hand slid into the water, extending down to him._

“Niisa, oadriax esiasch,” _a soft voice whispered, full of love and music, music to catch Simon’s heart on a shining silver hook._ “Té ipam capimao.”

_It was the most beautiful voice Simon had ever heard, a voice that turned each word into a song, one that used the spheres of Heaven for its instruments; harps strung with diamond-dust wormholes and galactic storms played like trumpets. Each word gleamed in front of Simon’s eyes, runes more intricate and exquisite than anything he could imagine. They reverberated inside him deeper than mortal words could reach, and desperately he stretched upwards, reaching for that hand. The anchor around his leg grew heavier in response, pulling him down faster, but now Simon kicked, trying to slow his descent. But it was too far, too far to reach, and abruptly his serenity shattered into panic._

“Naraphurmal azm!” _he cried, and instead of bubbles opalescent Marks spilled out of his mouth, floating upwards through the water._ “Obelis!” _He’d changed his mind, he didn’t want to go into the dark, not yet – he didn’t want to hear his name, because suddenly he knew that when he heard it he wouldn’t be Simon anymore; he would be someone else, something else, unmade and changed._ “Obelis!” _he pleaded again._ “Gon ipamis!”

_The hand withdrew, and the shadow of wings spread and flared, beat. The figure vanished into the sky, abandoning him, and Simon’s despair had no sound. He struggled, kicking and beating with his arms, trying to swim up, towards the storm raging in the sky, but it was no use; the anchor was the weight of a world at his ankle, dragging him away from the surface and down into the dark, the dark that would unmake him forever._

_And suddenly above the water the lightning outlined enormous wings with a white roar. The winged shadow plunged into the water, a sea eagle diving with hand outstretched, and the lightning was imprinted on its skin in a hundred glowing runes bright as fire, and Simon clasped a wrist emblazoned with an_ enkeli _Mark like a piece of the sun, and breathed._

*

   His lungs inflated with a gasp, sucking in bloodstained air, and for a moment Simon’s head was full of dark water, a shadowed face he could almost make out and a hand gripping his forearm, pressing their arms wrist to wrist –

   Then the battle with Abbadon came back in a rush, and he jolted upright.

   He was in the van. Clary was behind the wheel, cursing up a storm but with the sharp, bitten-off edges to her words that said she was terrified. Isabelle had shotgun, giving Clary directions between desperate glances over her shoulder at her brother, because Alec –

   _Alec_.

   They had laid him out on a blanket in a futile attempt to keep the blood from staining the seats, but they needn’t have bothered: whatever colour the fabric had once been it was dark crimson now, soaking and copper-scented. Jace was bent over him, tracing endless runes on Alec’s chest that faded as soon as they were completed. Simon was distantly amazed that Jace found anywhere to put the Marks: Alec’s body was – it didn’t look like a body, it looked like a _corpse_. He couldn’t possibly be alive: Jace or someone had ripped open Alec’s shirt, so it was impossible to miss the seven deep gouges cutting diagonally across his chest, scoring him from shoulder almost to his opposite hip, shredding flesh like a chainsaw. Instead of a simple clawing the furrows ended in mangled pit-like cavities where Abbadon’s fingers had punched into and through Alec’s body; the image of Alec hanging impaled on the demon’s claws flashed sickeningly through Simon’s mind.

   There was so much blood, and Alec lay so still, and there was no way to deny it: _that should be me._ If Alec hadn’t pushed Simon out of the way... Icy nails dug into Simon’s chest, and adrenalin pooled like venom in his gut.

   _That should be me._

   He was still dizzy from having sat up so quickly – it had only been a moment, not quite a heartbeat when Jace looked up at him. His expression hit Simon like a blow: it was the face of a man screaming internally. If that scream was silenced for a moment by the sight of Simon – if the agony was briefly broken by flashes of shock and relief and a kind of broken joy that streaked across his face like stars falling to their deaths – then it was only for a moment. The fear and pain and grief and guilt in Jace’s eyes were too deep, the storm in them too wild for soothing even as they begged for solace.

   Simon had to look away, sick with shame but unable to stand against the onslaught.

   _That should be me._

   If Jace agreed, he made no sign: he reached over Alec’s body and fisted his hand in Simon’s shirt, jerking him close. He curled his hand around the back of Simon’s neck, and it was wet against Simon’s skin, wet with blood. The sound he made as he pressed his forehead against Simon’s was – it tore shreds out of his heart.

   “I’m sorry,” he whispered helplessly, brushing his fingers over Jace’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

   “Ss-Simon?”

   Simon jerked back, staring down at Alec with pulse-pounding shock. _He’s alive?!_ But Jace just nodded, the jerky, disjointed motion of a broken doll. “Yeah, Alec,” he said softly, trying to smile while his eyes screamed. “You did it, you saved him.” His voice was choked. “He’s fine.”

   Simon would have given anything to be the one bleeding out in that moment.

   “Good,” Alec breathed. He hadn’t opened his eyes. “Couldn’t let your _parasta_ – _parastathentes_ die.”

   Jace swallowed hard. “He’s not my _parastanthes_ , Alec,” he said gently.

   “Not yet.” Alec laughed, and it was horrific, wet and choking. “Gonna be. Couldn’t let you lose him.”

   Jace clenched his eyes shut and locked his jaw, and Simon couldn’t bear it. “You’re not dying either,” he told Alec fiercely, tearing off his gloves. “This is—this is ridiculous, this is not how this goes. You’re going to be _fine._ ”

   Jace stared at him, but Simon counted anything, even _are-you-insane_ confusion, as a win after the _death-of-worlds_ agony still waiting in the back of Jace’s gaze. “Not how this—Simon, this isn’t a, a _book_ —”

 _“Shut up,_ it is if I say it is and I say _no one_ is going to die in this story.” Simon shoved off his jacket and dropped it to the floor. “Now stop arguing with my reality and show me how the fuck we fix this—”

   He froze, staring at his arm. Branded on him in a smooth twist of black pearl was the rune from his dream, the horned diamond he’d heard before singing in the seraph blades and tasted on Jace’s skin. _Angelic power_ , shining as if the Mark had slipped from the angel’s wrist to his, imprinted like black silk, passed on like a kiss.

   _That’s impossible._ Except it also didn’t fucking matter, Simon had to strain to hear Alec breathe and it was a wet, shuddering sound, and the mystery could wait till later. “Jace!” he snapped. “Tell me how we fix this!”

   It was Alec who answered. “Can’t,” he said simply. “The runes – ”

   “By the Angel, stop talking!” Isabelle cried. Simon had all but forgotten her: when he looked up she was watching them, tears streaming down her face. “Save your energy, Alec!”

    Simon met Clary’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. Her face was wet too, but when she caught sight of him she gave a shuddering gasp. “ _Barukh attah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam,_ ” she whispered. “ _She’asah li nes bamakom hazzeh._ ”

   He’d never heard her say that before, but her mom had said it once or twice and Simon knew what it meant: _Blessed are You LORD our God King of the universe, who did for me a miracle in this place_. The Hebrew blessing for witnessing a miracle.

   He didn’t have time to ask her what the miracle was, could only pray that God was paying attention and would give them another one for Alec. “Give me your stele,” he ordered Jace.

   “It won’t work,” Jace said. “I’ve been trying. There was demon poison – ”

   “ _Give me your fucking stele!_ ” Simon shouted, and Isabelle sobbed, pressing her hand over her mouth. Wordlessly, Jace handed it over, his face pale; Simon snatched it out of his fingers and bent over Alec.

   “You’re not fucking dying for me, you bastard,” he told Alec, choked, blinking back the burn in his eyes as he wiped a patch of Alec’s collarbone clear of blood. “That is not allowed, it is _not allowed._ ” He put the tip of the stele to skin and started tracing an _iratze_. “I haven’t even shown you _Queer as Folk_ yet, you can’t die without seeing the blazing hotness that is Brian Kinney – ” God, there was so much blood, and Simon lightened the pressure of the stele because he thought he could feel things grinding beneath his fingertips and _no_ , fucking _no, fuck_ the demon poison, this was _magic_ and magic didn’t just stop working, it wasn’t computer code to freeze up if you screwed the CSS, it was _MAGIC_. How did waving a piece of wood turn happy memories into a silver totem animal; how did Gandalf summon the light to drive off the Nazgûl; how did a song sung by a lion create a world? It didn’t make sense, because it didn’t have to, there were no rules and no exceptions because _IT WAS MAGIC_. Demons existed and that meant there were things that could kill them, things that could beat them, Shadowhunters and seraph blades and healing runes, because Jace was wrong, the existence of one _did_ prove the other, if there was a Hell there had to be a Heaven, if there were demons there had to be something other-better-stronger and that was the end of it, Sauron’s tower always fell and the Authority always lost  and the White Witch always died and _THAT WAS THE END OF IT_ –

   _You are not going to die –_

   And Alec didn’t. He kept not-dying as Simon drew rune after rune on every bit of skin he could reach, _iratze_ after _iratze_ that didn’t fade away but stayed where he put them, clumsy and severe but bright, inky black. Simon’s head felt like the pool at the base of a waterfall, pounding and roaring and no, no, _NO_ , he refused any other option. He could feel something fighting him, a thick, cloying violet-violence like the thick bruise of internal bleeding; it pushed at Simon’s stele from the underside of Alec’s skin and Simon snarled and pushed _back_ , carving the Marks into Alec’s collarbone and chest and arms, lining the claw marks with them like intricate stitches and the wounds didn’t close completely but they closed a little and the bleeding slowed. Jace used the shreds of Alec’s shirt to wipe the blood away so Simon had room to work and the runes from the dream danced in front of Simon’s eyes, golden and glowing on the angel’s skin and he could see the bones sluggishly coming back together under his hands, bit by bit, slow and unhappy but it was working, _it was working._

   Suddenly Alec gasped, sharp and amazed, and Simon froze, jolted back to reality and terrified that he’d pressed too deep or too hard. But Alec only said wonderingly, “I can feel my legs,” and Jace’s expression snapped into blankness and Simon was desperately thankful that he hadn’t known how bad it was when he’d started. He never would have believed he could fix a broken neck.

   He kept going, not daring to stop with the demon poison working against him. Clary coaxed Isabelle into a conversation, asking questions about Abbadon (“it hid in the Portal so the Sensors didn’t pick up on it,”) and explaining where she’d learned archery (“six years of B’nai B’rith camp,”), but Jace was silent and Simon never looked up from Alec’s broken body until the van suddenly stopped.

   “We’re here,” Clary announced.

   Jace and Isabelle both burst into motion. Simon got out of the way, shaking and hollow and sick as Alec’s sister and _parabatai_ carefully lifted him up on the blanket and carried him up the steps to the Institute. Hodge was standing in the doorway.

   “Are you okay?” Clary climbed into the back of the van. Simon couldn’t read her expression, which hit him hard. He’d thought he knew all of her faces.

   “I think so. I just – I feel empty. I think it was the runes.” Harry Potter magic was drawn from the wizard. Was the same true of runes?

   He didn’t have time to take the thought any further before Clary burst into tears and flung her arms around him. “I thought you were dead!” she cried. “You weren’t breathing, Simon! You fainted, a-and you weren’t breathing, you had no _pulse_ – ” She buried her face in his shoulder. “It’s a miracle, it has to be – you weren’t _breathing_ – ”

   Simon hugged her reflexively. For an organ that had been dead a little while ago, his heart was sure pounding now. _I wasn’t breathing?_ “I’m fine,” he murmured shakily, holding her tight. “It’s okay, Lewis, I’m fine – ”

   She leaned back and punched his jaw. _Hard._ “Don’t ever do that to me again!” she shouted, her face red and streaked with salt. “Or I swear to God, Fray, I’ll kill you myself! I’ll bring you back as a zombie and kill you _over and over_ – ”

   “I don’t think zombies are real, somebody would’ve mentioned it,” Simon mumbled, cradling his jaw. _I hope._ He looked up and flinched away from the rage in her eyes. “I’m sorry! Sorry! I won’t die again, I promise!”

   “You’d better not,” she said darkly. “Or I will _invent_ zombies, just for you.”

   She hugged him again, hiding her face against his shoulder, and he held her just as tightly, and let her.

*

   They didn’t linger very long, and caught up with the others in what Simon thought of as the entrance hall. The last time he’d paused in here, Alec had nearly killed him; now Jace’s _parabatai_ was the one almost dead, hanging limply between Jace and Isabelle. The shadows under his eyes were like bruises.

   _He’s not out of the woods yet,_ Simon thought with a jolt. He’d already begun to believe that Alec was safe, but in his frenzy of rune-drawing he’d missed the fact that Alec’s wounds still gaped open, and his chest was still concave. Simon had kept him alive, not healed him; the difference between life support and a cure.

   “Let me help,” he said hurriedly, darting forward to take Alec’s upper body from Jace. “Your arm...”

   Jace shook his head dismissively. “After drawing those runes – ” he began.

   “Hosanna’s garters, _I’ll_ do it!” Clary shoved both of them out of the way, hooking her arms under Alec’s shoulders with only a small grunt of effort. “There. Izzy, which way?”

   Jace frowned after her. “Hosanna’s garters?”

   Simon shrugged. “When she was little, she thought Hosanna was a person. It stuck.” 

   Jace nodded in the way that meant _crazy mundanes._ “I have to go with him.” He sounded tired and wrecked and tense, and Simon badly wanted to tuck him into bed but knew he had a snowball’s chance in Hell of convincing Jace to be apart from Alec right now.

   He didn’t resent it. “Go,” he said gently. “I’ll wash up and come find you, okay?”

   Jace exhaled, and his eyes were so – so _deep_ , twin chasms in an ocean of gold, all need and hurt and fear even as the rest of his face was perfectly composed. “Do you know what Hodge’s first words were?” he asked suddenly.

   Simon blinked at the non-sequitur. He glanced around, but Hodge must have left with Isabelle and the others. “What?”

   “He asked where the Cup was.” He turned and followed after the others without another word, and without looking back.

*

   Giving up on finding any kind of public washroom, Simon stepped into an unoccupied guest room and used the cubicle-sized ensuite to clean the blood off. What he really wanted – needed – was a shower, but the thought of leaving Jace alone with his fear for Alec that long was unacceptable, so Simon bent over the sink instead, splashing warm water over his face and scrubbing with his fingers. 

   He looked up at himself in the mirror to check if it was all off: instead he ended up staring at his reflection, shocked, and not at all sure that it was really him. Maybe it was a magic mirror.

   He peered at himself. The dried blood on his face had been reduced to watery red streaks, but there were a lot of them. He touched his upper lip, and beneath his left eye. Even after the water both places were thickly crusted, and he shuddered, remembering Abbadon, remembering screaming. He’d choked on blood, and cried it. When he turned his head there were dried ribbons of it trailing from each ear.

   _Eyes and nose and mouth and ears._ What had Abbadon _done_ to him? None of the others had reacted like that. They’d been hurt when the demon hit them, but they hadn’t collapsed and convulsed.

   He washed the rest of the blood away, from his face and neck and from his hands. The water ran in rivulets down his arms to his elbow, faintly pink lines criss-crossing his brand new rune.

   He stared at it for a moment, dizzy. He really _didn’t_ feel so good. Not as though he were about to collapse again, but drained and ungrounded. Shaky. _How much is blood loss, and how much is the runes?_

   He dried off his face and hands, shrugged his jacket back on, and left the little room, for once trying _not_ to think instead of pouncing on every fly-through thought. Abbadon, the dream, the rune on his wrist, the _iratzes_ that had worked where Jace’s hadn’t – it was both too much and too inconsequential with Alec maybe-dying. None of it mattered next to that. All of it could wait.

   _If he dies –_

_If he dies if he dies –_

   His mind could get no further.

   No. Wait.

   _If he dies, he dies for me. In my place._

   His thoughts should have stayed frozen.

   Church was waiting for him, at least, because Simon still did not have a map of this place. The cat was perched at the top of the stairs, and Simon didn’t have a lot of experience with cats but he was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to make noises like that – Church sounded like a broken toy, screeching and yowling until Simon took the stairs two at a time to reach him. Then, apparently satisfied, the cat shut up and led Simon to the Infirmary.

   Jace had not left even to clean up. Leaning against the wall, the hands toying with Simiel were covered in drying blood, and his shirt was torn. A bruise was already blossoming on his cheek, but his arm, at least, seemed to have been healed. It was no longer hanging like a piece of meat from his shoulder, anyway. He opened his eyes as Simon approached. Simon braced himself, and didn’t flinch.

   “I was wondering where that got to,” he said, glancing at his seraph blade.

   “Bonded blades never get lost.” Jace handed it to him silently.

   Simon took it. A spark of light flickered through the crystal, a happy glow, before it dimmed and Simon snapped the blade into his vambrace. “How is he?” he asked quietly.

   The Infirmary doors were open – Simon could see Alec lying corpse-still on one of the beds, Clary and Isabelle both handing Hodge various bottles and tools as he asked for them. But Jace didn’t glance that way, as if he already knew. Simon thought of how Jace had touched a rune and told Alec to intercept Simon all those days ago, how he’d been able to speak to his _parabatai_ although they were rooms away from each other. Maybe Jace _did_ know. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Demon poisonings are common, but since it was a Greater Demon, Hodge isn’t sure if the antidotes he usually employs will be viable.” He breathed in slowly. “If your runes hadn’t worked, he’d already be – ”

   He cut himself off. “I should want to know how you managed that,” he said after a moment. “But I find I don’t care. It should have been impossible, but you’re always doing impossible things.”

   “Six impossible things before breakfast,” Simon murmured. He reached out and took Jace’s hand. Jace stared at their laced fingers as if he had never seen them before.

   “Impossible things,” Jace repeated softly. He smoothed his thumb over the back of Simon’s hand, and his face softened a little, as if it was suddenly easier to breathe.

   Then his expression shuttered, and he let go. “This is my fault.”

   “What is?” It took Simon a beat to get it. “Alec? Jesus, Jace! It is _not_ your fault!”

   “Oh, but it is.” Jace’s voice was like glass the moment before it broke, vibrating and fracturing. “ _Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa._ ”

   St Xavier’s taught Latin, but Simon had never been very good at it. “What?”

   “ ‘My fault,’ ” Jace translated. “ ‘My own fault, my most grievous fault.’ ”

   “It is _not_ ,” Simon snarled. He shoved Jace against the wall, heedless of both their injuries. “Do you think he wants you thinking that?” he demanded, desperate that Jace didn’t, _didn’t_ think that. His mom still cried over a wooden box every year, and that was a normal grief. How much worse would it be, how much more deeply would it cut if Jace carried misplaced blame around with him on top of the loss? “Do you think _he_ blames you? You were on the other side of the God-damned room, Jace, there was nothing you could’ve – ”

   “Exactly,” Jace interrupted. “ _Exactly_. I was on the other side of the room. He’s my _parabatai_ , the one I fight beside, and I was nowhere near him. I should have had his back. I should have saved him. Instead he saved you, and my first thought – ” His voice broke, ragged and raw, thick with grief and guilt, “ – my first thought was ‘thank the Angel, he’s all right.’ ” His hands came up on either side of Simon’s face. “Do you understand? _You_. My _parabatai_ , my brother, and all I could think about was _you_. And that’s why he did it, because he knows that, knows how much it would hurt me to lose you. He did it for me, and if he dies it will be like I killed him.”

   “That’s not true,” Simon whispered.

   “And then you did die,” Jace continued, as if Simon hadn’t spoken. “Your heart stopped, you didn’t breathe – do you know what _ya’aburnee_ means, Simon?”

   Simon nodded.

   “No,” Jace shook his head, his eyes wild, “no, you don’t. You can’t. I thought I did, but I didn’t. I do now. I thought you were dead, and I – they teach us that to die in battle is a thing of glory, but the only thing I could think of was that I wanted the grave next to yours.”

   Simon froze. “Jace...” he breathed. He had no idea what to say. _We haven’t even been on a date yet_ ; the glib words flew to his tongue, inane and meaningless. He swallowed them. He felt as though he’d been shot.

   “I was trying,” Jace said. “Alec was still alive, he was hurt, I had to help him. The living always come first, but the whole time, I kept thinking ‘I’ll never hear him laugh again. I’ll never see him smile. I’ll never get to say – ’ ”

   His voice grew choked, and he pressed their heads together, brow to brow and Simon clutched at him, hugged him tight enough to crush because he couldn’t bear it, because everything was tight and trembling and about to shatter, because –

   “I know,” Simon answered, softly, fiercely, desperately, “I know, I know, I know. I – I do too.”

   Jace was shaking. They both were, Simon realised. Resonating with the words that could not be spoken, not with Alec’s blood so thick in the space between them.

   “We’ve only known each other a few days,” Simon whispered.

   “I know.” Jace’s exhale was a shudder. “And it terrifies me. This, terrifies me.” He brushed his lips over Simon’s, quick and desperate, not so much a kiss as a plea. “But a life without you terrifies me more.”

   _I wanted the grave next to yours._ Yes. Yes, this was terrifying. This wasn’t – no one should feel like this, not so soon and maybe not ever. Simon knew what his mom would say; that this wasn’t healthy, that he should let Jace down as gently as possible and tell someone, maybe a psychiatrist, certainly a parent. Guardian. Somebody.

   But if it had been Jace...if Simon had thought Jace were dead...

   “We shouldn’t feel like this,” he said weakly. “This isn’t normal, Jace. It’s not healthy. It’s...” The platitudes were tasteless. He knew he should believe it – God, he knew how he was supposed to react, what he was supposed to do. Mom, his teachers, the careful, sterile sex ed at St Xavier’s, a thousand books and movies about crazy, obsessive romantic partners – by the Great Parrot of Hades, he should be horrified. Freaked out.

   He should be running in the other direction, as fast as he could go.

   Jace shifted his hand, brushing the pad of his thumb over Simon’s cheekbone, a smooth sweep beneath his eye. “Do you care?” he asked softly.

   He’d never felt less like running away in his life.

   “No,” Simon whispered. “I should. But I don’t.” He turned his cheek into Jace’s palm. His chest was so tight it hurt to breathe. _I don’t want to be good anymore,_ he thought, something fierce and desperate curled tight around his heart. He’d always been the perfect son, the perfect student, the best friend. He’d never handed in a piece of homework late, never sneaked a drink or gone over the speed limit. He did his chores without needing to be reminded; he kept his room tidy and cooked dinner when his mom was tired. He didn’t stay out late; he always swallowed the words he knew he’d regret later.

   He couldn’t imagine regretting these words.

   “I want to want,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking sick of being sensible all the time. Being _good_. Putting everything I want in a little box because I’ll regret being stupid, because I’m always thinking about _later_. I’m tired of always reminding myself that things probably won’t work out. Lint probably won’t go anywhere. You and me are probably going to go down in flames. I don’t _care!_ ”

   He fisted his hand in Jace’s hair and it _hurt_ , a thickness in his throat. It was almost unbearable; he wanted to shout and he wanted to cry. “I want you,” he said hoarsely. “And I don’t care.”

   Jace looked at him for a long moment. The emotion in his eyes was beyond words: intense and longing and disbelieving, fear-hope-hunger. Something screamingly soft. “If I swear it’s not a distraction,” he whispered, “can I kiss you?”

   In answer Simon tilted his head and pressed their lips together, open-mouthed and fervent, and Jace’s sharp intake of breath had jagged edges and then they were breathing for each other, unable to stand alone but not having to – God, not having to. There was nothing sexual in it, no tongue or teeth, just the burn in Simon’s eyes and the fist in his chest and this terrible, earth-shattering _need_. He couldn’t tell if he was flying or falling but he knew he couldn’t let go. Touching clouds or hitting the ground, he didn’t know how to let this go.

   _The ocean’s in my blood, and I can’t get it out._

_I don’t even want to try._

   He didn’t realise he was crying until salt threaded its way between their lips. The kiss ended, and Jace didn’t say anything, didn’t say a word. Silently, he tilted Simon’s face to his and brushed his mouth over Simon’s cheeks, so softly. Again, and again, slow as snowfall and sweet as a dream, he kissed each tear away and a knife to the heart would have hurt less.

   “What’s happening to us?” Simon whispered.

   Jace didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t have one either. Simon’s hand was still in the blond’s hair, and Jace tugged it gently, drew it down to the side of his face and laid his own hand over it. He turned his head to kiss Simon’s palm, and then his wrist, and finally, belatedly noticed Simon’s rune. “What’s this?”

   He slid his thumb over it, and Simon shivered, something beyond words catching in his throat. “You should know the answer to that better than me.” He grinned, but it didn’t fit quite right on his face.

   “ _Enkeli_.” Jace brushed his thumb back and forth over the sweep of black, softly. “Angelic power. When did you draw it?”

   “About that.” Simon took a breath. “I didn’t.”

   He expected disbelief or confusion, but instead Jace grew pale. “Is this like the music you heard?”

   Yesterday. Was it only yesterday? Simon thought of the song that had grabbed hold of his soul and spun it like a top, and swallowed hard. “I don’t know. Maybe? A little?” He hesitated. “When I was...out of it,” he said carefully, “I dreamed. I was...drowning, I guess, kind of, and the guy who rescued me had this,” he turned his wrist pointedly, “on his arm. When I woke up, it was on mine.”

   “That’s not possible.”

   Simon frowned at him. “I can hear magic music and see runes in my dreams, but they can’t get onto my skin?”

   “It’s different.” Jace’s eyes were wide, his pupils inky and deep. “The _telesma_ was already in your memories somewhere. You were just remembering it. But you can’t – nobody can create runes without a stele. They don’t just _appear_.”

   Simon shrugged to hide the swirl of uncertainty caught like frenzied birds in his ribcage. “This one did.” He paused. “Is it better or worse if I say my rescuer was an angel?”

   Jace opened his mouth to speak, but a pointed cough had them both whirling around. It was Hodge, standing in the doorway of the Infirmary, and Simon instantly turned his face away, hastily wiping away the last of his tears.

   “I have done what I can,” Hodge said after a pause. There was a small, unhappy frown between his eyes, but whether that was over Alec or seeing Simon and Jace so clearly together, Simon couldn’t tell. “He is sedated, not in pain, but...” He shook his head. There was drying blood on his now-rumpled suit. “I must contact the Silent Brothers. This is beyond my abilities.”

   Simon stepped away from Jace for propriety’s sake, letting his hand fall from Jace’s face. He half-hoped that Jace wouldn’t let him go, but the blond was entirely focussed on Hodge. _No,_ Simon corrected himself firmly, _on Alec._ And it hit him all over again, that Alec was dying.

   “How long will it take them to get here?” Jace asked.

   “I don’t know.” Hodge began walking down the corridor, without looking back. “I’ll send Hugo immediately, but the Brothers come at their own discretion. You know this, Jace.”

   “But for _this_ – ” Jace caught up with his tutor quickly; after a moment’s hesitation Simon followed, hanging back awkwardly so as not to seem intrusive. He wasn’t sure if he was welcome for this conversation, but he couldn’t imagine leaving Jace alone right now. “He’ll die otherwise.”

   “Yes,” Hodge agreed calmly.

   Simon didn’t need to see Jace’s face to read the stricken blow in the line of his _erastes’_ shoulders.

   There was a window open in the library, when they reached it, filling the room with the scent of rain. Hugo was on his perch by Hodge’s desk, and he made a pleased, chirruping sound that seemed more appropriate to a robin than a raven when he saw his master. Hodge strode over to him, absently stroking the bird’s head before reaching for paper and pen from his desk. “It is a great pity,” the old man said, taking a seat, “that you did not retrieve the Cup. It would, I think, bring some comfort to Alec, and certainly to his parents.”

   Simon glanced at Jace, but the blond’s face was impassive. _He asked where the Cup was_ , Jace had said, and Simon had assumed that Jace had told him. Apparently not. He wondered what Jace _had_ said, if he’d snapped and let loose all that forest-fire power at his tutor for his insensitivity. Simon wished he could have heard it. “We _did_ get the Cup,” he told Hodge, turning to look at him. “I don’t know why you think a fucking hunk of metal is more important than Alec, but we got the damn thing.” His voice was perfectly even, but he felt a spark of vicious satisfaction as Hodge froze.

   “ _You have the Cup?_ ”

   In answer, Simon reached into the inside of his jacket and withdrew the card with a little flourish. “Safe and sound,” he said mildly, resisting the urge to snarl. _As if a fucking chalice could ever matter more than a human life, you utter bastard._

   Hodge’s pen clattered onto the floor; the man didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were locked on the card. “Take it out,” he breathed. He looked to Jace, gesturing impatiently. “A stele, give him a stele, Jace!”

   Beyond the door in his head, something whispered. “No,” Simon said coolly. “I have a better idea. You tell the Silent Brothers that we have the Cup, and that they can have it when they heal Alec.” He flipped the card over. “I bet they’ll come running then, won’t they? For their precious Angel’s Cup.”

   Hodge gaped. “One cannot blackmail the Silent Brothers!”

   Simon smiled at him. “You can when you’re holding all the cards.” He grinned, flipping the card again. “Literally.”

   “Hodge, just do it,” Jace pleaded. At the sound of his _erastes’_ desperation, Simon’s dark amusement fled like a raven taking wing. “Simon’s right, they’ll come for the Cup!” When Hodge hesitated:  “It’s _Alec_.”

   Hodge sighed, and met Simon’s gaze. “At least remove the Cup from the card, Simon. As a sign of good faith.”

   A whisper. A flicker of a warning, of something not-quite-right. “No,” Simon answered, tucking the card away in his pocket again. “I’m not the one who has to prove himself here.” He heard his voice grow cold. “I’m just the only one in the world who can give them the Cup.”

   Hodge was silent for a moment. “Well, now, that’s not quite true,” he said finally. “There is also your mother.”

   Ice, a short sharp dart of it. “Somehow I don’t think she’s an option,” Simon snapped.

   “I think I will have to disagree with you.” Hodge rose from his chair and moved around to the front of his desk. Hugo flew up from his perch, cawing. “If you will not retrieve the Cup, Simon, then she will have to be made to.”

   This time the ice was a sword. “What are you talking about?” Simon whispered.

   “Hodge?” Jace’s voice was caught between confusion and wariness.

   Hodge smiled, the curve of his mouth both sad and wry. “I see now that you are more like him than I thought,” he said. “You have his ruthlessness in you.”

   “Whose?” Simiel glittered on his arm, and Simon took a step back, obeying the whispers growing louder and louder in his head. “Who am I like?”

   “Your father,” Hodge said, and with a cry like a scream Hugo plunged down from the room’s heights directly for Simon’s face. 

*

   Jace shouted, but Simon couldn’t hear the words. The world exploded into a storm of black and red pain, avian shrieks and long, sharp claws – too slowly. Blackness whirlwinded outside his skull and roared inside it, came rushing through the door in his mind screaming for blood. Everything snapped into crystal and rain as the claws raked his face – once. Hugo went for his eyes but his talons skidded off Simon’s glasses and Simon spun; the raven’s wings beat in slow motion and Simon snatched one out of the air, his hand closing on one oily-soft pinion. The bird screeched and the boy whirled, throwing Hugo like a Frisbee, and for a horrible moment he thought of Alec when the raven hit one of the bookshelves.

   The bird fell to the floor and lay still, just as Alec had done.

   The reminder jerked him out of his trance. For a moment he stared at Hugo’s corpse, horrified – and then a crushing blow hit him between the shoulders.

   His Shadowhunter jacket was padded with body armour, but the hit came at the very base of his neck, where the chainmail in the collar could deflect a knife but didn’t block pressure; Simon fell forward before he could take a breath, almost landing on his face. He caught himself just in time – but not enough time to move. Hodge’s foot caught Simon in the jaw and everything went dark.

   He woke slowly on his back, the side of his face throbbing with what would no doubt be a magnificent bruise. It took him a second to realise that he was on the floor of the library; when he did he made to leap upright –

   And nearly screamed. His jacket, vambraces and boots were gone, and his hands were bound behind his back with something that seared like fire when he tried to move. A second’s experimentation informed him that the same burning bonds were looped around his ankles.

   Trying not to panic, he gingerly shoved himself onto his side. There was no way to manage it without pulling at his bindings, and he bit down on the pain. If he hadn’t experienced whatever Abbadon had done this morning, he wouldn’t have been able to bear it. Now, at least, he had been through worse.

   Hodge was straightening up from the pile made of Simon’s lost clothing, the Mortal Cup’s card in his hand. Simon barely noticed, because Jace was lying at Hodge’s feet and he wasn’t moving and everything just _shattered_.

   _NO._

   Hodge glanced at him. “It would have been better if you had remained unconscious,” he sighed. He followed Simon’s gaze to Jace. “He’s not hurt,” he reassured him. “Merely sleeping.”

   Simon lifted his eyes, very slowly, to Hodge’s face.

   Hodge flinched back a full step, before catching himself. He laughed nervously. “You truly are your father’s son.”

   Simon wasn’t interested in the bait. He didn’t care whose son he was, didn’t care if the man who’d played sperm donor a lifetime ago had been his mother’s husband or if she’d had an affair with a Greater Demon or whatever big fucking revelation Hodge was trying to dangle in front of him so desperately. Nothing mattered, nothing could _possibly_ matter when Jace lay so still and so vulnerable.

   “If you hurt Jace,” said the Other behind Simon’s eyes, in a voice as soft as the drawing back of surf before the tsunami struck, “I will end you.” Real fear flashed across Hodge’s face, and the thing wearing Simon’s skin smiled, slow and knife-sharp. _Good._ Hodge _should_ be scared. “I will hunt you down no matter where you run or how long it takes, and when I find you I will rip a hole in the world and _throw you into it_.”

   Hodge stared at him, the whites of his eyes very visible. “What are you?” he whispered.

   Simon’s smile widened. “The death of anyone who hurts him.” The words flowed from his tongue, poison-sweet and velvet-soft. Everything was very, very quiet inside him, the whole world narrowed down to the edge of a blade, to one razor-sharp point. Everything unnecessary – thoughts, qualms, morals – was stripped away, leaving only this ice-fire-metal-stone creature at his core, raw and real. “ _Vonph sa ciaofi sa ds teloc_.”

   _The wrath and the terror and the death._

   Hodge stilled. “How do you know that tongue?” he breathed. “I have studied Enochian for decades, but you cannot possibly – the books, the teachers, the _years_ it takes just to master the grammar...”

   _Enochian. Is that what this is?_ Simon didn’t know and he didn’t care. He grinned. “An angel taught me. The same one who marked my arm.” _I think._ It was just there in his head, the language, formless and shining like water, its source that place behind the broken door. It slipped through his fingers and left them red, red, _red –_ until he needed it, and then he tasted copper and ivory and the words bled out of him. “ _Geh ciaofin vl?_ ”

   _Are you scared yet?_

   Hodge swallowed. “I begin to think that perhaps only a fool would not be,” he said softly.

   “Then let Jace go.” The fanged playfulness vanished into the blazing ice. The game, the delight of toying with Hodge’s fear was cast aside in an instant. “Do what you want with the Cup, but let Jace go. _Now_.”

   “I wish I could.” Some of the alert strength went out of Hodge’s shoulders, but Simon didn’t let it fool him. He had believed Hodge was a tired old man – and Hodge had attacked like a _blitzkrieg_ while Simon was distracted with Hugo. “I know you will not believe this, but I truly do. I wish you and Jace no harm at all. But Valentine insisted on Jace as part of my bargain.”

   Lightning? It was a _sun_ that caught fire in Simon’s head, a white-hot star that screamed light and heat and fury inside his skull, searing everything else to ash. Whole worlds went up in flames behind Simon’s eyes. “ _Doalim ds canilu-uls_ ,” he hissed, and he meant it, meant it more than he’d ever meant anything in the _world_. No teenage melodrama or cringeworthy B-movie script or alpha male posturing _bullshit_ : if Hodge laid one hand on Jace Simon would kill him without hesitation, would rip him apart and _glory_ in it and nail up the pieces in Times Square so the whole world could see what happened when you hurt Simon’s _erastes_. The horrified reactions of the people he loved never entered the equation; it didn’t occur to him to pause and wonder what his mom would think, how Clary would react, what Jace himself might think of it. It was a brute fact, like gravity: hurt Jace and Simon would wash his lover’s wounds clean with blood and blood and blood.

   Hodge looked saddened, of all things. At some other time the confusion might have pushed Simon out of his trance but not now, not with Hodge drawing a stele out of his sleeve and Jace lying there helpless and Simon _screamed_ , black rage and bloodlust and _I will destroy you, I will UNMAKE YOU if you touch him!_ He fought the bindings on his wrists and the blue pain only sent him further and further away from the door, deeper and deeper into the grip of this thing roaring for Hodge’s blood.

   He calmed a little when Hodge stepped away from Jace, making no move to draw some unholy rune on him, Mark him with God-knew-what. Instead Hodge walked over to Simon, his face very tired.

   “I know you will not believe this,” he repeated as Simon fought his bonds and snarled, “but I truly have your best interests at heart. If you knew...” He shook his head and sighed. “There is no time to move you,” he muttered to himself. “We will simply have to ensure that he does not see or hear you.”

  He knelt down, and Simon lunged for him, ungainly and graceless and vicious. Hodge dodged back just in time to avoid Simon’s teeth in his arm.

   “You will thank me when this is over,” Hodge told him, tracing a circle of runes around Simon’s prone body, ignoring Simon’s Enochian abuse, curses, oaths swearing to personally consign Hodge’s soul to Hell. “I promise. You and Jace... You need to be separated.”

   “Fuck you!” Simon shouted. Black, black and red and screamingly bright gold. There was terror running into the rage now, bleeding in because all his fury was impotent and Simon couldn’t cauterise the heart-wound, everything was turning all to blood and _no, no, NO!_ “Leave him alone! _Don’t fucking touch him!_ ”

   Valentine. Hodge was going to – what? Valentine, Valentine had made some kind of bargain for Jace – why, for what, to take him use him kill him _NO!_

   He _screamed_ , fury and fear and the raw animal promise of murder and pain and he didn’t feel human, he shed humanity like a snakeskin and screamed out what he found underneath as Hodge rose to his feet, the cage of runes completed. By the way Hodge’s eyes suddenly slid off Simon like water off glass Simon knew the man couldn’t see him anymore, that he had made Simon invisible and likely inaudible but he couldn’t stop, he _could not stop_ roaring his desperate denial as Hodge made his way back over to Jace. He had no idea what was coming out of his mouth, what words, English and Enochian all blurring together and the boneless sprawl of Jace’s arm was so fragile and vulnerable and Simon would kill them _all_ , slaughter them with his bare hands and his teeth if they did anything to Jace, if they, if they –

   Hodge took Jace’s hand and removed the heavy silver ring Jace always wore, the one with the Wayland W. The traitor put it on his own finger.

   For a moment, he hesitated, and Simon struck a bargain with the world, a thousand of them, promising everything, promising sainthood if Hodge would only change his mind, turn the clock back, leave Jace _alone_ –

   With a sharp, sudden movement Hodge twisted the ring three times.

   A heartbeat. Two. Simon stopped screaming, holding his breath and waiting, waiting for whatever was meant to happen. But nothing did.

   Four heartbeats. Five.

   He was just beginning to breathe again when silver light suddenly spilled out of the air. It moved like water, rippling and rushing in a shimmering starlit waterfall, and it glowed like diamonds and raindrops on the hair and shoulders of the man who stepped through it.

   “Starkweather,” he said peremptorily. “You have the Cup?”

   Wordlessly, Hodge held up the card. He stood as if frozen, and Simon wanted it to be awe or surprise or anything but fear, because he did not want anyone worthy of fear anywhere near Jace. 

   Jace could have been asleep, there on the carpet. Or he could have been dead. Simon caught a snarl in his throat, felt it crunch like bone between his teeth.

   “My Lord Valentine,” Hodge said after a beat. “I had not expected you so quickly.”

   Simon’s eyes snapped up from Jace and swept over the newcomer’s face. So this was Valentine. _Threat, enemy, rip his heart out of his chest!_ The droplets of his Portal were already fading away from the shoulders of his suit.

   He was a warrior. That was immediately obvious. He stood tall and strong, with smooth muscle under the sleeves of his shirt and the thick scars of a thousand runes visible at his wrists beneath his cuffs, and he held himself with that liquid grace all Shadowhunters seemed to have. But he had more than most: he wore an aura of power like a crown, and something about him reminded Simon of an uninvoked seraph blade, as though it would only take a breath to turn him into a weapon. He was handsome, Simon acknowledged without interest. In the mundane world he could have been an actor or a model instead of a murderous psychopath, with that face; regal and sensual and charismatic.

   Although given the state of Simon’s thoughts right now, perhaps he shouldn’t be throwing stones. Psychopath was a label that would fit him like a glove just now.

   Simon didn’t care about Valentine’s face. But his hair...Valentine’s hair was pale blond, paler than Jace’s; icy and almost white instead of Jace’s warm, bright gold. And it was familiar.

   Simon did not struggle to place it. Shadows and fire and blood and razors; he remembered instantly where he had seen it before, and in a flash accepted it and moved on, brushing the revelation aside as inconsequential.

   The only thing that mattered was Jace.

   “I told you I would come to you through a Portal,” Valentine said. His voice was rich, a surprisingly beautiful voice, like polished steel against wine-red velvet. “Didn’t you believe me?”

   “Yes, of course. It’s just – I thought you would send Pangborn or Blackwell, not come yourself.”

   Valentine’s lips curved slightly with amusement. “You think I would send them to collect the Cup? I am not a fool. I know its lure.” He held out his hand. A silver ring shone on his finger, but Simon was too far away to make out the engraving on it. “Give it to me.”

   “I want what you promised me first.” Hodge tried to look determined, but only succeeded in being surprised at his own daring.

   Simon hoped Valentine killed him.

   But he didn’t. He smiled. “First? You don’t trust me, Starkweather?” His eyes were dark. “I’ll do as you asked. A bargain is a bargain, though you have not quite fulfilled your end of it.” His gaze swept over the card, and then Jace on the floor, dispassionately. “You give me a painting, not the Cup, and only one boy. Where is the other?”

   “Simon left,” Hodge said quickly, and Simon did not start but his eyes narrowed, his attention sharpening still further at the revelation that Valentine was looking for him too. _Can I use that?_ “He is staying with a mundane friend of his. I couldn’t convince him to retrieve the Cup before he...” His words faltered under Valentine’s cool scorn. “I – I thought that, perhaps, Jocelyn...”

   “Jocelyn is indisposed,” Valentine said smoothly. He looked down at Jace again, and Simon hated, _hated_ the look on his face, composed and detached as though he were examining a tool. _He is beautiful smart brave hilarious good gentle strong PERFECT, he has value, so much value, don’t look at him like that!_

_Don’t look at him at ALL!_

   “But no doubt Jocelyn’s son will come running after his little catamite,” Valentine murmured, and Hodge flinched but Simon _snarled_ , snarled and wrenched at his arms and fought uselessly through the raging pain in his hands and his heart. “And he can retrieve the Cup when he arrives. Very well.” He looked up at Hodge once more. “Although I must say I was astonished to get your message. I wouldn’t have thought you’d mind a life of hidden contemplation, so to speak. You never were much for the battlefield.”

   “You don’t know what it’s like.” Hodge’s expression was ragged: Simon wanted to rip it off his face in shreds. “Being afraid all the time – ”

   “That’s true. I don’t.” Valentine’s voice was cold enough to burn. He stared at Hodge for a long moment. “If you did not intend to give me the Cup,” he said softly, “you should not have summoned me here.”

   It was a warning, but still Hodge hesitated. “It is not easy to betray what you believe in,” he whispered. His eyes fell to the card in his hands, and even as he kept Valentine distracted from Jace Simon loathed him for his weakness, for his pathetic spinelessness. “Nor those who trust you.”

   “Do you mean the Lightwoods, or their children?” Valentine sounded honestly curious.

   “Both,” Hodge said.

   “Ah, the Lightwoods.” Valentine brushed his hand over the smooth edge of Hodge’s desk. “But what do you owe them, really? Yours is the punishment that should have been theirs. If they had not had such high connections in the Clave...” There was a metal globe on the desk, copper or brass, and Valentine touched his fingertips to it gently, as though it were something precious. “They should have been cursed along with you. As it is, they are free to come and go, to walk in the sunlight like ordinary men.” Delicately, he traced meandering lines on the globe, spinning it softly – until he stopped. “They are free to go home,” he murmured.

   No doubt Valentine’s hand had paused over Idris. Hodge looked away from it, as if the reminder was too much. “They did what anyone would do.”

   “You would not have done it. I would not have done it. To let a friend suffer in my place? And surely it must engender some bitterness in you, to know that they so easily left this fate to you...”

   “But it is not the children’s fault.” Hodge was torn, clearly at war with himself. It was pathetic but Simon could only pray that he would keep talking, that someone, Isabelle or Clary, would come looking for them, that Valentine would be forced to flee without Jace, without hurting him, without – “They have done nothing – ”

   “I never knew you to be so fond of children,” Valentine said mockingly.

   “Jace – ”

   “ _You will not speak of Jace_.” Valentine’s voice was a whip, and Hodge cringed from it.

   “You won’t hurt him,” the old man whispered. He clutched the card to his heart. “You swore you wouldn’t hurt him.”

   “I never did that,” Valentine said, and Simon _screamed_ , a wild, primal denial that clawed its way up out of his depths, out of somewhere black and dark and bleeding and he didn’t care, didn’t care that it shredded his throat or what he must look like, sound like, inhuman and animal and _doalim ds canilu-uls_ , _DOALIM DS CANILU-ULS_ , it hurt and burned and he pulled and pulled at his wrists, his ankles, he would have torn through the bonds with his teeth if he could only have reached, anything to get out and get Jace and the pain didn’t matter, nothing mattered just _don’t hurt him, don’t you dare, DOALIM DS CANILU-ULS!_

   Valentine let his hand fall from the globe, and he turned towards Hodge. “And what would you do if I said I did plan to hurt him?”

   _Kill you_ , Simon swore instantly – not-Simon, the other thing, the shadow with black wings spread to block out the world and the light and everything that wanted to qualify what he would do to get Jace free and safe; things like _sadism is wrong and killing is wrong and if you do this and this and this you will be as bad or worse than them –_

_I want to be worse. I want to be so much worse that they never DARE come anywhere near Jace again for fear of me!_

   “Would you fight me?” Valentine continued. “Keep the Cup from me? Even if you could kill me, the Clave will never lift your curse. You’ll hide here till you die, terrified to do so much as open a window too widely. What wouldn’t you trade away, not to be afraid any longer? What wouldn’t you give up, to go home again?”

   Hodge’s face was twisted with agony. That other Simon, the one who loved _Star Wars_ and cookie-dough ice-cream and playing his guitar – that Simon might have felt sorry for him. Might have cared. But the Simon wearing his skin felt a vicious surge of satisfaction at Hodge’s pain, a snarling triumph. _Get used to it. It’s nothing compared to what I will make you feel when I get out of this, when this is over, when I hunt you down and –_

“Tell me you won’t hurt him,” Hodge said, his voice trembling, “and I’ll give it to you.”

   “No.” Valentine’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. “You’ll give it to me anyway.”

   He held out his hand.

   Hodge hovered in an agony of indecision, and Simon’s gaze fell to Jace’s still form. Hodge could give Valentine the Cup or not, it didn’t matter; Valentine could have the whole world, all of it, he could have everything if he would just leave Jace alone, just this one thing, one person, he could burn every inch of earth if he just left the bit Jace was standing on and it didn’t matter how loudly Simon screamed, how hard he fought and struggled and slammed against the wall of runes trapping him in, he couldn’t get free and that meant, that meant –

   All the rage in the world was useless –

   _Wake up,_ he begged, praying, praying for Jace to wake up. _You have to wake up, you have to get away, he’s going to take you and hurt you and k-k-k –_

_And I can’t stop him –_

   The truth of it was so big, so much, so far beyond the pain Abbadon had dealt him – _I can’t stop him, I can’t save you, Jace please God wake up wake up wake UP!_ He couldn’t breathe past it, couldn’t scream, couldn’t tear his eyes away from Jace’s face. _Please please please please please you have to wake up you have to you have to you have to PLEASE –_

   Hodge held out the card with a trembling hand, and Valentine smiled, and took it, and the world blurred with Simon’s helpless, hopeless tears. “Thank you,” Valentine said. He inspected the card thoughtfully. “I do believe you’ve bent the corner.”

   “Jace,” Simon whispered. “Jace, please – _please_ – ” The word no longer made sense, he couldn’t remember what it meant but he couldn’t stop saying it, every beat of his heart singing it, _screaming_ it. “Please, please, please, p-please, _please!_ ”

   _I will do anything, I will, I’ll be good forever, I’ll die, I’ll go with Valentine I’ll go straight I’ll give up music I’ll give up my memories of him, I’ll forget him I’ll live without him God, Raziel, anyone, please, please, I will do ANYTHING just don’t, don’t don’t don’t let him take Jace, please, PLEASE!_

“Stop it!” he screamed as Valentine bent down to Jace. “Don’t touch him, _don’t_ , _eál ul niis, eál gi adarepehetra sa geh ialpor baglé doalim,_ _zacam ovs!”_ The words grew lost in the sobbing screams, bright, searing gold words that tasted like blood and they weren’t enough, even if Valentine had been able to hear him they wouldn’t have been enough, and Valentine lifted Jace up like the weight was nothing and Simon screamed, _no, no, this can’t be happening, no, please God no no no._

   “He’ll be with his father soon,” Valentine murmured, looking down at Jace’s pale face. He brushed back a lock of Jace’s gold hair, sickeningly tender. “Where he belongs.”

   There was nothing left to break, and yet something broke. The shards of himself, the flakes and splinters, caught fire and burned and died and Simon lost it, some tiny part of himself must have been kept in reserve because now he lost hold of it and everything was gone, thoughts and fear and the ability to feel pain as he writhed and shrieked and the tears fell warm as blood on his face and the bonds holding him captive burned like battery acid and he couldn’t feel it, couldn’t think, lost lost lost it, so deep his mind couldn’t even hold Jace’s name, only the sense of him, the condensed crystallised core of what Jace was and who he was and and and black wings beat in his head, drowning out everything but the tiny fragile spark that was what he knew Jace to be –

   And it wasn’t enough.

   “Wait!” Hodge cried as Valentine turned away towards the Portal _(with Jace, with Jace in his arms because Simon wasn’t enough to save him)_. “What of your promise to me? You swore to end my curse.”

   Valentine paused. “That is true.” He did not turn around, or move at all, but Hodge gasped and jerked back, his hand reaching up to his chest in disbelief and stunned pain. Black liquid, like a demon’s blood, trickled from between his fingers as he clutched at his heart.

   “It is done,” Valentine said. “May your bought freedom bring you joy.”

   And Simon could only watch, his heart dying in his chest through his tears and his wordless, agonised-desperate-pleading cries as Valentine stepped into the waterfall of light.

   For a fraction of an instant, not even a full breath, the spray of light-droplets covered Jace in a shroud of diamonds, glittering and mourning and exquisite, and Simon thought _this is how you take the ocean out of the blood –_

   And then Jace was gone, and Simon screamed and screamed and screamed.

* * *

NOTES

In case it wasn't clear, the dialogue in Simon’s dream is also in Enochian.

 _Nissa, oadriax esiasch. Té ipam capimao._ – Come away, little brother. It is not time.

 _Naraphurmal azm! Obelis! Gon ipamis!_  – Help me! Please! I can’t!

On Hodge knocking Simon out – you only have to move a person’s jaw a little bit horizontally to tap a certain nerve. That tap will knock a person out cold – a kind of reset button. You can research it if you like, but please don’t use it on anybody outside of self-defence!

 _Doalim ds canilu-uls_ – dare(/sin) and die screaming.

 _Eál ul niis_ – I will end you.

 _Eál gi adarepehetra sa geh ialpor baglé doalim_ – I will tear you down and you will burn for this.

 _Zacam ovs_ – I will send you into the dark.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we begin, I would like to say a HUGE FREAKING THANK YOU to everyone who commented on the last chapter. I will not apologise for leaving you all with such an evil cliff-hanger, but I am very glad you all (presumably!) decided to stay on and stick with it to the end. 
> 
> Secondly: a small edit has been made to chapter 23. So you don’t have to reread the whole thing, I will just tell this: mention has been made of the fact that Simon has his armaskō cuff in his jacket pocket. It will be important later, but it was in fact just a tiny paragraph inserted into the chapter, and in no way affects the events of any of the previous chapters. I just wanted you to know.
> 
> And now, enjoy!

   Lights out.

   Simon checked out of the world. Even years later, he could never remember those first few minutes after watching Jace disappear. What he did, what he said, what he thought; whether he screamed or wept, lay still or tore at his bindings, cursed or begged, in English or the bloodstained gold of Enochian – he had no idea. He didn’t know what Hodge had done, if he’d stood and marvelled or gone to his desk to pen a note, if he’d looked awed or joyful or guilty. The Doctor could have swept in, extended an invitation to leave this messed-up planet forever, and gone away disappointed – Simon would never know. There was a red hole in his memory full of shrieking static, and its edges stayed forever raw and hot to the touch.

_(He never got those lost moments back. He never wanted them.)_

   When the lights came back on, somebody else was home.

   For a moment, he just breathed. He was lying on his stomach, his face pressed to the carpet; his throat and lungs felt as if they’d been scoured by razor wire. His eyes were dry as fire.

   He was concentrated down, purified. Perfected. There was no room in him for tears.

   He turned onto his side. The pain in his wrists barely registered as a flicker of irritation. “ _Odo-emetgis, Hodge gon_.”

   _Let me out, Hodge._

   The old man started. He was still standing in the middle of the room after all, the hand pressed to his chest so coated in the black gunk of his curse that he might have been wearing a glove. But he overcame his surprise quickly. “I can’t,” he replied, his voice quavering slightly as he shook his head. He took a step away from Simon – from the person wearing his face. “You’ll only try to kill me.”

   “I won’t,” Simon lied, without hesitation. Then told the truth, baldly and cold: “I don’t have time to deal with you. I have to go after Jace. Let me go, and you’ll have hours, maybe days or weeks before I come after you.”

   Hodge stared at him. Simon stared back, the shards of his heart caught in ice like rose petals between the pages of a book.

   “Are you – yes, you’re quite serious, aren’t you?” Hodge pulled out a handkerchief and began to wipe at his hand nervously.

   “Do you want me to promise to leave you be?” Simon asked softly, agonisingly aware of every second falling away from him like sand in an hourglass. Gone, gone and never coming back, when he might need every one of them. “I will. Your life for his, but it only counts if I can save him, Hodge.” His lips pulled back from his teeth. “If Valentine kills him because you kept me here too long to reach him –  ”

   “Is that what you think?” Hodge’s handkerchief was smoking now, as if the stain on his hand were liquid fire – and indelible, because it wasn’t coming off. Hodge stared at it unhappily, then put the cloth away. “He isn’t going to kill Jace, Simon.”

   Simon did not dignify that with an answer. “ _Odo-emetgis gon,_ ” he repeated instead, low and intense and something, something in him vibrated like the plucked strings of his guitar and his fierce, cold desire, his urgency, his _Jace_ took shape in his head, a flash of burning whiteness, curves and twists and a harsh, quick slash, a rune, the song of his need –

   Something passed over Hodge’s face, just for a moment – a waxy blankness, an emptiness. For the space of a breath he might have been a sleepwalker, his eyes fogged over, his face as animated as a badly made toy, and the strings vibrated and Simon _needed_ and Hodge, Hodge took a slow, uncertain step towards Simon in the circle, his unblackened hand clumsily reaching into his pocket for his stele –

   But the moment his fingers touched the crystal wand he jerked back, so hard and quickly that he nearly fell, the mask over his features dissolving in a storm of horrified terror as loud and clear as a scream.

   “ _What are you?”_ Hodge cried, the whites of his eyes bared and wild, the kind of panic Simon had never seen on an adult’s face before. “How – how did you – _what are you?_ ”

   There was no room in Simon to care. “Let me _out_ ,” he snarled, “and maybe neither of us will have to find out!”

   But Hodge kept backing away, shaking his head, and Simon nearly screamed with frustration. Seconds, precious seconds, there wasn’t _time_ for this! “Where is he taking Jace, Hodge? _Tell me!_ ”

   “ _No_.” The soft denial tore out of Hodge like a bullet, but Simon’s heart was in pieces and locked away in ice besides. The shot missed, and Hodge – Hodge looked at Simon as if he saw a monster. As if he could actually see beneath Simon’s skin to the creature wearing it.

   “I used to think that the Nephilim were great,” Hodge whispered. “But all our angelic heritage has given to us is a longer distance to fall.” He shook his head once more, trembling. “I do not know what he did to you, Simon. But I am sorry for it.”

   “Don’t you dare walk out,” Simon snarled, struggling to sit up as Hodge turned towards the door. “Hodge – Hodge! _Geh adrpan baglé Hodge, doalim, Iada ipé-camliax gi doain – coronzah, odqvas-sibesi!”_

Hodge’s hand found the door handle, and opened it.

 _“_ _Gi sibesi-emetgis noar pvrgel, Hodge!”_ Simon screamed. _“Gi sibesi-emetgis noar pvrgel!”_

   Hodge hesitated.

   “I swear it,” Simon spat, blazing, fierce, not knowing where the words or the surety that they were true came from but meaning it with every cell of his soul. “Walk out that door, and they will burn you alive.”

   For a moment, he almost thought Hodge would reconsider. Would turn back to him, open the rune-cage, help him get Jace back.

   Then:

   “I’m sorry.” It was so soft that Simon almost didn’t hear it at all, and then Hodge was gone.

*

   This time he did not scream.

   He was still lying on the ground; he was not flexible enough to work out how to sit up, with his wrists and feet still tied with burning bands of fire. He breathed.

   The other Simon – the mortal, the mundane, the seventeen-year-old who loved Kingdom Hearts and Chinese food and who had thrown the book across the room when Dobby died – _that_ Simon – was crying, wracking, helpless sobs. Deep inside, sitting amidst the shards of their shared heart, he clutched his knees to his chest and cried for Jocelyn and Jace and his failure to save either of them.

   It hurt so much, and he was so, so scared. So terrified that he would never see either of them again.

   Softly, gently, the other Simon – the one with the taste of Enochian on his tongue, the one who could ignore the agony of their bonds, the one who would make Valentine regret ever hearing Jace’s name – _that_ Simon – gathered up the boy crying, and crooned to him, and brushed his tears away. The Simon without a name tenderly put the mundane Simon to bed, wrapping him in shadows like velvet and silk, tucking him away deep and safe where nothing else could hurt him.

   _Brgda,_ he whispered, stroking that other boy’s hair. _Eál gi tox iolcam_. _Brgda_.

   And that part of Simon curled like a seashell and slept.

   The other part – the stronger half, the one that was steel and ice and chrome, sunspot-fire and lightning and a long, screaming howl in the dark – closed his eyes once more.

   Tragedies happened every day. Thousands of them – millions of them. Someone died every second, and almost everyone was someone else’s beloved. Sister, son, cousin, husband, friend, wife, brother, daughter, lover; boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other, other half, better half, beau.

   _Erastes_.

   They died, and not because they weren’t loved enough, but because sometimes love itself just wasn’t enough. Cancer. A bullet. A car crash. Heart attack. A robbery gone wrong, a fall in the shower, a brain aneurysm. Sometimes it was someone’s fault and sometimes it wasn’t, but love couldn’t cure AIDS or cardiomyopathy. It could stop the Killing Curse but not a bullet, and it didn’t matter if you would gladly die in someone’s place, didn’t matter if their death would shatter you, didn’t matter if you would give anything to bring them back. The Fates didn’t make exchanges. They didn’t strike bargains. They didn’t care about love.

   In the real world, love didn’t matter.

   But Simon had never lived in the real world, not really. He had lived in Hogwarts and Destiny Islands and Narnia, he grew up in Lyra’s Oxford and Barrayar and Hed; he travelled the Middle Kingdoms with Herewiss and stood against the dark with Sabriel and in their world, in _Simon’s_ world –

   In his world, love was always enough.

   He closed his eyes and felt the edge, the precipice that he’d thought was a door, the one he’d been flirting with ever since the Shadow World opened its claw-tipped arms to him. The line in the sand, the chasm beneath his feet, the trigger and the knife’s edge and the bullet all in one. The agreement that could not be taken back, the contract that could not be unsigned, the choice that could not be unmade.

   _Go down this road, and you are never coming back._

   Wordless. Silent. No one spoke to him; there were no voices, in Enochian or any other language. No angel appeared to say _it is not time_ ; no dreams overtook him with their fragile, quicksilver meanings hidden between heartbeats. No runes. No warnings. No song. This one was all on him, and on him alone.

   Simon’s answer, his reason, his everything, was just one word:

   _Jace._

   Simon felt the edge, and took a breath.

   And dived.

   Rage. Anger like nothing on Earth seared through him as he fell, plunging through layer after layer of mindheart – call them _annamay_ and _pranmay_ and _manomay_ , the Hindu sheaths surrounding the soul; call them body and breath and memory; call them the id and ego and super-ego – he crashed through them all, tearing them to shreds with a Valkyrie’s battle-scream echoing in his head and his throat. Everything was ripped away, _everything_ ; Alec dying in the Infirmary and Jocelyn in a torturer’s cell and Hodge’s betrayal, the dreams and the runes and the music, howling winds and shadows raking him and _burning_ , a crucible of falling, flames turning his skin to ash and all of it blowing away, dissolving, screaming with a mouth rowed with sharp teeth and his ribcage broken open to the sky and he curled tight around that one thing, that one word, one name, holding it close as the fire pyrographed it into his bones and engraved it on his blood, the heat crystallising his heart into something that blazed like a star. Building and building, it built and built and this was it, _you are never coming back,_ howling, wind and wings and _this is how you take the ocean out of the blood_ and it was waiting for him, the ocean, there beneath everything, at the core of everything; he smashed into it, plummeted into the depths from beyond the sky with lightning on his skin and it was so _cold_ , ice, he gasped and it rushed in on the taste of blood –

   _Oh my God, you’re playing_ here _have you had dealings with demons, little boy_ where’s my mom _I’m Isabelle Lightwood for our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France_ ** _I ask entry to this holy place_** _we all have secrets I’m not your father now someone is invoking his name it seemed like the most likely explanation take this then **say its name – Simiel – and it will extend** _ it’s just like a videogame, it’s just like a videogame _forget Alec,_ I’m _going to kill you if you keep stealing my kills wonderful drink, tea_ ** _in the name of the Battle That Never Ends_** _the love card_ sed lex dura lex _after you Pangborn if we duel again can I use a car instead of Simiel those men killed my father you cannot leave the Institute **you have no right to a seraph blade!** call me when you’re close and I'll have a pizza waiting there’s this magic cup **you** **want to kiss me, don’t you?** sounds like a manga **I**_ ** _ask the use of your weapons_** _and then you get married you haven’t shut up about it since it happened fabulous wonderful breathtakingly **I am not useless** do you think Valentine _listens _when your mother begs him not to there’s something I have to tell you **this place is not for monsters** I don’t understand why mundanes always apologise for things that aren’t their fault it soaked my shoes _**_the boy never cried again_** _you don’t want me to hold your hand? **like Eärendil** love you, Simon blondie’s head on a stick instruments made of cheese don’t turn into a daffodil while I’m gone I like your shirt _**_in the name of the Angel Raziel_** _we put the holy water in his gas tank you know I’m memorable, it’s true it’s the Cup that concerns us_ tell me where she is! _somebody took Clary **do you want to be as bad as them, or do you want to be worth something where it counts?** I’d just stopped believing God cared you’re not from our neighbourhood are you **I**_ ** _ask your blessings_** _I prefer to think of myself as an unappreciated genius the only bargain you’re getting today is your lives for our friend she bit me please tell me this isn’t Sebastian I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before_ ** _on my mission_** _my shoulder’s dislocated **his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, and broke its neck** come sit down **he doesn’t realise that falling for you wasn’t a choice** not Jesus, _ Jace _**it means that you’re mine, and I’m yours** you’re mine, Symeon – my beloved sacrifice you couldn’t hear me you said you were going to stay away from him _**_against the darkness_** _I don’t need to know his favourite colour to know_ him ** _to love is to destroy_** _he could lose everything over you **you are nothing** enjoying the view you get a gold star screw you eventually I’m wearing a dragon **Theliel Sandalphon Israfel and Anael** lover and beloved **we’re not monsters, Simon** the king of the gods fell in love with himand stole him away you Hellspawn let me _ move _we share a profound bond **ya’aburnee** we both love Jace it’s an old edition she did design this _telesma _the eggs are bombs_ ** _and to be loved_** _get in losers we’re going demon-hunting did I turn you down because I’m a lesbian your version of low must be different from mine you sure you’re not from Staten Island **I think it would be best if you did not grow into your wings** Simon, run! _ niisa, oadriax esiasch _**no one is going to die in this story** I wanted the grave next to yours **I want you, and I don’t care** they can have it when they heal Alec _**_is to be the one_** geh ciaofin vl _don’t fucking touch him! you swore you wouldn’t hurt him I never did that he’ll be with his father soon_ ** _destroyed_** _it is done._

   The water carried the memory of Jace in Valentine’s arms, framed by the Portal’s light, deep into Simon’s lungs, into his blood. It flooded him and it was power and it was death, it was thunder and the shattering of the earth, the screams of distant stars and the jewel at the core of the sun and

   _It_

_Was_

**_ NO! _ **

   Rejection-negation-disavowal-repudiation-confutation-nullification-disilution-abrogation; a contradiction, a _cancellation_ , an _annulment_ of that which he would not accept, not now and not ever, _this shall not be_ , every _no_ in the world distilled into the roar of an erinys spreading black wings across the Earth and blotting out the stars and Jace lying helpless in Valentine’s arms, no, no, _this_

_Will not_

**_ Be! _ **

   The full weight and force of the ocean burst forth in a crimson tidal wave, up and out and through the Mark on his arm. The _enkeli_ came ablaze like a branding iron pressed to his skin and it was a mirror multiplying the waves into infinity, it was a magnifying glass pulling the tsunami up and up until it set tears on the moon’s face and the bonds Hodge had tied around him drowned, swept over and under and snuffed out. Simon snapped his eyes open and his hands out and the wave kept going, smashed aside the cage Hodge had trapped him in like glass under Thor’s hammer. The runes on the carpet flared briefly, weakly, dying fireflies; the angelic power rune on his forearm glittered with motes of gilt, like gold dust in ink.

   And then both lights dimmed, and were gone.

   There was no time to wonder what he’d done, no time to marvel or slump to the floor with the sudden backhand of weakness. Simon shoved himself up, ignoring the pained shriek of exhausted muscles, the ache in his bones. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered because Valentine had Jace, _Jace,_ and if Hodge was gone Simon would never know where or how to find his _erastes_ –

   He forced himself to run for his weapons instead of bolting straight out of the room, snapping his vambraces into place as quickly as he could. Simiel began to glow the moment the leather touched his skin, a steady, hard light like sunlight on a razor’s edge, and when he shrugged his jacket on Simon pushed up the sleeves so his _armask_ _ō_ sword blazed on his arm like a warning. When he was about to run for the door he hesitated, a thought catching on his bloodhound-focus like fabric on wire, and turned to the window instead, shoving aside the curtain.

   And there he was: Hodge, his head bowed as he crossed the street, the hunch of his shoulders somehow fragile. Simon wasn’t aware that he’d bared his teeth until he heard a low snarl rumble through the room, and realised that it was his own. Simiel burned brighter on his arm.

   He let the curtain fall.

   Then he ran.

   Black wings rustled in his head, red waves lapping against the inside of his skull like bloodthirsty tongues, heedless of the shaky hollowness in his legs, the dull burn circling each wrist and ankle. He ran and wanted to fall and wanted to kill, could still feel the bones-to-water scream of an erinys in his throat begging to come free, rip loose, echo and echo through the hallways until every window shattered and it reached Hodge outside, until the traitor fell to his knees under the weight of the sound, ears and eyes bleeding –

   He flew as if the wings were real, as if they beat and moved him through the world, caught in the current and embracing it, letting it carry him. When he and Jace had run from Pangborn and his friend Simon had struggled, unfit and soft, and his body was worse now, tired and drained but something deeper than flesh and blood sustained him, a blinding white light of a battery, a nuclear reactor and if he didn’t find Jace, if he didn’t get Jace back it would blow them all away –

   He saw Clary. He did. But his world was so narrow, so focussed that his mind couldn’t process her, didn’t understand who-what-why and didn’t move out of the way in time. He crashed into her at the top of the stairs, and if he hadn’t been on fire he never would have been able to catch her and the railing both before the two of them fell.

   “Simon!” It was as though she spoke in a foreign language. “What the hell’s going on? No, never mind, just – where’s Hodge? Izzy sent me to find him, but I keep getting lost in here – ”

   The stairs would take too long. Without a second’s hesitation Simon grasped the rail and swung over it, exactly as he had seen Jace do that day with the Forsaken, but Jace had gone up and Simon plunged down, and for a second he could hear the wind rushing through his wings, drowning out Clary’s scream –

   It was a fifteen, sixteen-foot drop. He hit the ground and his knees folded, neat and tidy as if he’d done it a thousand-thousand times, landing in a crouch with his palm slapping forward onto the floor. And then up and off, Clary yelling behind him but her words had less meaning than the wind in his ears. The doors crashed into the wall and he barely heard the grating thud over the wash of the summer heat, humid and thick as blood; he jumped the outside steps and hit the pavement running, his Shadowhunter boots pounding the tarmac in a rhythm almost as hard and fast as his heartbeat.

   Shoppers and tourists gave his Shadowhunter gear odd looks, especially his glowing seraph blade, but he ignored them. When he reached the intersection where he’d seen Hodge he spun in a three-sixty, searching for him. _Jace, Jace, Jace_ , his pulse sang, and he could feel the sand in the hourglass draining away, slipping through his fingers. A thick crowd was just spilling out of a subway entrance when Simon saw a flash of tweed, and he bolted after it. He didn’t have to shove hard to get through the press of people – more than one person saw the twisted snarl on his face and backed quickly away – and Simon got free of them just in time to see Hodge vanish into a service alley.

   Simon pushed aside a Dumpster, ignoring his tired body’s protests, and stepped into the shade. It was barely midday outside, but the buildings on either side of the alley stretched so high they plunged the space into twilight. Simiel was a beacon in the shadows; the blade’s light stretched just far enough that Simon could just barely make out Hodge, standing – hiding – at the far end of the alley.

   “I suppose I should not be surprised that you managed to free yourself so quickly,” Hodge said.

   “Just tell me where Valentine took Jace.” Simon moved forward, deeper into the alley. One of the buildings sandwiching them must be a fast-food restaurant; trash bags full of rotting food were piled against the walls, and plastic cutlery crunched like tiny bones under Simon’s boots. “That’s all I want. I don’t fucking _care_ about you, Hodge. You can go and live in the Bahamas for all I care.” _Until I have time to hunt you down._ “ _Just tell me where Jace is._ ”

   “I can’t do that. Valentine will know I told you, and my freedom will be as short as my life.” Hodge turned to face him. In Simiel’s light, his face looked haggard. “Did you mean what you said?”

   “Which part? Your life for his?” If he had to torture the information out of Hodge, he would need somewhere more private than this, the cool, analytical part of Simon decided. Here they were too close to the street. Someone might hear and intervene.

   “No. What you said about my – my Marks.” Hodge’s voice trembled.

   “Yes.” No hesitation. He knew it like he knew how to breathe, and couldn’t have explained how he knew it any more than he could have explained how to inhale and exhale, but the words that spilled from his lips were as solid and sure as if carved in stone. “You know the Enochian word for runes. _Sibesi-emetgis_ , seal of the Covenant, and you are breaking it. You thought the Circle was right, you somehow got twisted up enough to think genocide was for the good of the human race, but giving Valentine the Cup, giving him _Jace_ isn’t for the world, it’s for _you_. You betrayed other Shadowhunters, and your Marks will _burn you alive for it_.”

   “Then I suppose I am damned,” Hodge said, and threw something bright and silver at Simon’s face.

   Simon had plucked Hugo out of the air but now he was too slow, too tired: he barely saw it coming before it traced a shriek of white fire across his cheek, deep and searing and Simon probably screamed but he didn’t hear it. He stumbled backwards, his hand flying to his face, to the blood running like water between his fingers and the sick, gut-wrenching pain slashing his nerve endings to ribbons.

   “Go home, Simon.” Hodge already had another of his weapons in each hand; chakrams, circles with razor-sharp edges. Simon recognised them from _Xena: Warrior Princess_ , but the reminder couldn’t make him smile. He – it – it hurt, it hurt it hurt, shredding the delicate cocoon of the other Simon, smashing him awake, dragging him terrified and young and alone back into the light. “You were not raised as one of us. You have no part of this life of scars and killing. You can still get away.”

   Simon’s eyes watered with tears of pain, and his breath came in quick, short gasps. Blood soaked his hand, his wrist, sleeving him in red so that he almost matched Hodge; it probably looked black in the dim light. His mind spun, dizzy and sick, _I can’t do this, I don’t know how to do this it hurts it hurts it hurts hurts hurts_ –

   _So what?_ His own voice, sharp and scathing from beyond the door in his head, from the pit, the chasm running through his mind. _So what if it hurts? Crashing the motorbike hurt worse than this. Abbadon hurt worse than this. You survived that, you can survive this._

_Jace needs you, so YOU WILL SURVIVE THIS._

   Simon swallowed it, the thick lump of a pained sob in his throat. _Pain is water and you are a diamond_. It almost made him smile. “Tell me,” he repeated, slow and careful because every syllable pulled viciously at the wound high on his cheek, “where Jace is.”

   “I will not be so gentle a second time,” Hodge warned, lifting his hands, and the gleaming discs of metal in them. “You are something that should not exist. Go home. Live as a mundane, put all this behind you. Leave, and never come back.”

   It hurt. Watching Valentine take Jace had hurt more. Simon exhaled slowly, and lowered his hand. His face was wet with red, sliding down his cheek like tears. “No.”

   “Then I must put you down.” It might have been regret in his voice, but there was a hardness there too, as hard and immutable as the steel that flashed in his hands and he was _fast_ , the space between him and Simon vanished in an instant and Simon only just got his arms up in time for the chakrams to hit his vambraces instead of his chest.

   Fast fast _fast_ , Hodge was slower than Jace but quicker than a tired-scared-hurting Simon; the chakrams trailed tails like comets in Simiel’s light, flashing and glittering and dazzling Simon’s eyes and he moved-moved-moved, blocking, trying to catch every sharp edge on his vambraces, twisting-turning-ducking-backing up, back and back and back, if they were dancing then Hodge was leading and Simon’s vest and jacket were dragon-leather, they turned the chakram’s edges but Simon had no chance to grab a seraph blade, no chance to do anything but frantically try to defend himself while his cheek throbbed and his bones pounded, all too aware that he hadn’t closed the jacket, hadn’t fastened the collar with its chain-mail lining, leaving his throat bare, unprotected, vulnerable to one sharp slash past his guard –

   It came, as he’d known it would, and all he could do to avoid it was jerk back – but he misjudged it and leaned too far, fell to the ground and his skull hit the concrete with a dizzying _crack_ that exploded through his head.

   He heard Hodge walking towards him and knew he had to move, had to had to, but his tongue felt too thick in his mouth, his thoughts darting and slippery as fish, his cheek was screaming at him and his muscles were ununoctium over lead bones and _J-J-Jace, Jace, no, wait..._ Gasping for breath, he forced his arm to move, reached for Simiel but his fingers were slick with blood, they kept slipping, he couldn’t work the catch and Hodge stood over him and _no_ , come on, _work_ –

   “I’m sorry,” Hodge told him, raising his chakram up over the boy lying on the ground amidst the trash and no, no, not like this, _Jace –_

   “Hey asshole!” Clary snarled. “Head’s up!”

   A sharp cutting explosion tore at Simon’s eardrums and ripped a shocked cry from Hodge. His chakram fell to the ground with a clatter as red blossomed on his shoulder, like a red rose meant for his buttonhole. He stared at the wound with disbelief, still clutching his second chakram as blood trickled through his fingers. “What...?”

   He looked up, and Simon couldn’t see what Hodge saw but he saw Hodge’s face twist with anger, saw him move his other arm as if to throw his disc – and another shot came instantly, without hesitation, this one taking Hodge through the wrist and the man shouted wordlessly, the chakram slipping through his fingers and bouncing harmlessly a few inches from Simon’s leg.

   Something else fell too, something small and silver like a coin tossed into a fountain. Simon snatched it up in his bloody hand and wished hard on it.

   “Here’s how this is going to go,” Clary said, her voice a whip. Simon heard her come closer, kicking rubbish out of her way. “I’m going to count to ten, and if I can still see you when I’m done, the next one’s going between your eyes. Ready? Awesome. _One_.”

   “Wait – I – ” Hodge was flabbergasted, unable to believe how quickly and suddenly the tables had turned.

   “ _Two_.”

   Hodge ran. He bolted out of Simon’s line of sight, towards the mouth of the alley, and Clary must have let him pass because there were no more gunshots. Instead he heard the slap of her sneakers against the ground, and then she was beside him, heedless of the discarded burger boxes and rotting pickles as she holstered a God-damn _handgun_ under her jacket.

   “That’s twice in one day you’ve saved my ass, Lewis,” Simon managed, the words coming out mangled and thick. “I think you win.”

   “I’m the only one allowed beat you up, Fray,” Clary answered automatically, her face twisting with worry. “Jesus, Simon, what did he _do_ to you?”

   Simon tried to sit up; her hands flew to help, supporting his back and shoulders. “M’ cheek. Head.” Talking hurt; the quip had cost him. Instead of trying again he looked down, unfolding his fingers from around Jace’s ring. The silver was smeared with red from his hand; the engraved _W_ had marked itself upside-down onto his palm. It looked like an M.

   The sudden lump in his throat stopped in his breath, and for a second Simon was on the edge of tears. Clumsily, his heart molten lead in his chest, he pushed the ring into the same pocket that held his _armask_ _ō_ cuff. The pocket zipped up, but his hand was shaking too hard to work the zipper. Clary leaned in to help him without a word, her fingers deft and dry next to his useless bloody ones.

   When she was done, she leaned back on her ankles and peered at his face. Realising what she was trying to do, Simon lifted his left arm, angling the glowing Simiel so the light fell on his cheek, giving her light. She hissed. “Simon, I can see _bone_.”

   “So that’s why it hurts.”

   She growled and made to smack him, the way she had a thousand times, then caught herself, horrified by what she’d nearly done. “You need a hospital. Or one of those tattoo things...” She grew even paler. “Oh, God, what about Alec?”

   Simon had forgotten all about him. Guilt raked him like Wolverine’s claws. He shook his head, unable to find the words, and groaned as his brain spun in circles, fracturing into uselessness. He reached desperately for meaning and hooked a gleam of thought: _Jace._

   “Jace,” he whispered.

   “What?”

   Simon swallowed and tried to raise his voice, tried to speak clearly. “Jace. Jace is gone. Hodge gave him to Valentine. And the Cup,” he added belatedly. He’d forgotten about that too.

   “He _what?_ ”

   “Please don’t make me say it again.” Simon raised his hand to his cheek, but Clary slapped it away.

   “You’ll get it dirty. Even more dirty. Jesus, okay. Okay.” She chewed her lip, thinking quickly. “Right. We’re going back to the Institute. Izzy probably knows enough to heal you, and they need to know about Hodge and Jace, and we need to figure out how to help Alec. Yes? Yes? Okay.” She straightened up without waiting for him to answer. “I’m going to help you up, and then you’re going to lean on me. And we’re both going to hope nobody calls the police on us.”

    “Sounds like a plan.” _Jace_ , the thing behind the door howled, and the cry echoed in Simon as if his bones were a xylophone. Hodge was gone, Simon had no idea how to find Jace and _time_ , every second that turned to ash was one less that Jace had to wait for Simon to find him...

   Trying to stand was hell. He was dizzy and sudden movements made it worse, made him want to bend over and be sick. Clary was strong, but she was still tiny and Simon struggled to help her, to support any of his own weight. There was blood everywhere.

   “Where did you get a _gun_ , anyway?” Simon asked her, desperately seeking a distraction from the frantic panic beating a drum in his head. _Jace, Jace, Jace!_

   “It’s mom’s,” Clary gasped, bracing her legs as she tried to pull him up. Simon’s legs kept ignoring his commands and trying to do the splits when he wanted to put his weight on them: it was making things tricky. “You know how she’s scared of everything? She got it in case anyone ever broke in. We go to the shooting range every Saturday.” She shrugged. “You said pack a Star of David. I thought a gun would be a better bet.” She gave him a look. “Didn’t you hear me shoot out the lock, at your house?”

   Now that she mentioned it, Simon _did_ remember a loud bang, right before Clary had swept in to save the day. “You – told me – ” His breath came hard through gritted teeth: he was about ready to cut his damn legs _off_ , “that she was – sending you to – Hebrew school!”

   “I lied,” she said easily, the worry in her eyes belying her light-hearted tone. “Wanted to wait till I got good, then challenge you to _Time Crisis 4_ and kick your ass.”

   “No need,” Simon told her. “You’re amazing. You’d win.” He grinned at her. “Breaking and entering, now concealing a weapon. Do you even have a licence for that thing?”

   “Hey, this _thing_ saved your life. I’d be grateful for my lack of regard for the law.”

   Finally he was upright, his arm looped around Clary’s shoulders. “I think I’m good,” he said carefully, and Clary gave a short sigh of relief.

   “Okay. Then let’s try and get back to the Institute.”

   One shaky, pathetically weak step. Simon bit his tongue and tried to tamp down on his frustration, on the voice screaming that there wasn’t _time_ for this!

   Two steps. On the third, Clary carefully maneuvered them around to face the mouth of the alley, and Simon blinked hard, a new wave of dizziness punching him.

   “Simon? What?” She watched his face, her own expression tight with apprehension and concern.

   “I think I hit my head harder than I thought,” he managed thickly. He hated worrying her. He blinked again, but the hallucination was still there: a wolf straight out of _New Moon_ , pitch-black and the size of a horse, a single gray stripe running through its fur. He felt like he was about to be sick; the ground seemed so far away. “’Caus I’m seeing a wolf.”

  Frowning, Clary glanced towards the alleyway entrance – and froze.

   “Simon,” she whispered. “You’re not seeing things.”

   “I’m...not...?” Spinning. Everything was spinning, his vision indistinct and foggy, and, and – “Clary,” he said frantically, “I think – I think I’m gonna – ”

   “Simon!”

   The world turned soft, colours running together like wet paint, and as Simon slipped under he glimpsed the wolf, striding towards them and blurring, twisting into a man...

   ...and everything went black.

   Lights out.

* * *

 

NOTES

 _Geh adrpan baglé Hodge, doalim –_ You are cast down for this, Hodge

 _Iada ipé-camliax gi doain –_ God will not speak your name.

(Simon is NOT especially religious, and he doesn’t believe this to be literally true (he himself doesn’t know what he believes about God). But the thing about insults is that they are defined by the context of a language and the society that speaks it. Enochian has no phrase for ‘fuck you’. It’s the language of angels; for an angel the worst possible thing is for God to turn away from them. Saying ‘God will not speak your name’ is the Enochian equivalent of calling someone...I don’t know...a genocidal paedophile with necrophiliac tendencies. The lowest most evil thing it’s possible to be (because how low do you have to go before your creator turns away from you?))

 _Coronzah –_ demon

 _Odqvas-sibesi –_ oath-breaker

 _Gi sibesi-emetgis noar pvrgel_ – Your Marks (‘seals of the promise/Covenant’) will burn/become fire.

 _Brgda. Eál gi tox iolcam. Brgda.  –_ Sleep. I will bring him back. Sleep.

 _Annamay, pranmay_ and _manomay_ are three of the _Pancha koshas_ , the layers or ‘sheaths’ Hindus believe encircle or contain the soul.

 _Erinys_ is the singular form of _erinyes_ , the Greek name for the Furies.


	26. Interlude: Witch's Ladder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right guys, this is the first of the Healing Scene interludes! HUGE kudos to my darling beta starry_nights88, because she is AWESOME and got this all edited for us even when she wasn’t feeling well. SO GIVE HER HUGS AND COOKIES <3
> 
> But first, a quick note. One of this fic’s lovely readers questioned some of Simon’s Enochian abuse in the last chapter – specifically, why Simon told Hodge ‘God will not speak your name’. Simon is NOT especially religious, and he doesn’t believe this to be literally true (he himself doesn’t know what he believes about God). But the thing about insults is that they are defined by the context of a language and the society that speaks it. Enochian has no phrase for ‘fuck you’. It’s the language of angels; for an angel the worst possible thing is for God to turn away from them. Saying ‘God will not speak your name’ is the Enochian equivalent of calling someone...I don’t know...a genocidal paedophile with necrophiliac tendencies. The lowest most evil thing it’s possible to be (because how low do you have to go before your creator turns away from you?)
> 
> (And another note, just in case anyone is wondering: no, I’m not Christian, I’m just fascinated by the Judeo-Christian mythos and angels in all their forms everywhere).
> 
> This part goes out to KobyHowls on ao3, because he is a CRAZY AWESOME DUDE and I enjoy immensely watching him scour CoS for clues. Also IndigoMay, LadyKayDJ, and Lilien Kate, for always making my day with your ridiculously incredible reactions to each chapter.
> 
> And now, the interlude. Hope you guys enjoy this one!

   Once upon a time Isabelle had believed that nothing could ever hurt her family. Neither she, nor Alec, nor Jace – nor Max, when his time came – would ever earn more than bruises on their hunts. Bruises, and the burn of the Angel’s Marks, and perhaps, occasionally, a sprained ankle or two, earned performing some daring acrobatic feat. But nothing worse than that.

   Once upon a time Isabelle had been unable to imagine real pain, and thus couldn’t imagine how it could ever touch her or the people she loved.

   But then there had been broken arms and sulphur burns and sharp, tearing teeth in the dark, and although she had never faltered – not ever, not _once_ – she had thought that she had grown out of her child-self’s naiveté, put it away with her dolls and Mr Snuffles. She had believed that she had accepted it: the fact that someday she would not come back, that she was unlikely to ever see her fiftieth – maybe even her fortieth – birthday. It had never stopped her but she had held the knowledge in the back of her mind like a knife in her boot, sheathed but still deadly sharp.

   Well, and so what? Better to go out young and leave a beautiful corpse.

   But whenever she had contemplated this scene it had been with a very different script. It had been her on the bed, always too headstrong and for once too slow. Or Jace, fierce and battle-drunk, the day he finally went too far and overstepped the generous bounds Lady Luck had seen fit to grant him. Isabelle had carried it around for years, the small seed of grief just waiting to sprout, waiting to be watered in the blood of whichever of them – her, or Jace – fell first.

   She had never, not once, considered that it might be Alec instead.

   But it was, and now the Infirmary’s familiar space had become a nightmare and she was scrambling for her lines, forced into a role she had never dreamed she would have to play. The room was thick with the stink of Abbadon’s venom, with the sweat of a hurt and hurting body and it was _Alec_. Her mind kept stuttering, catching on it like a hangnail. Alec. Her big brother. The careful one, the sensible one, the big brother who watched her back and had never killed anything but was never seriously hurt, either. Because he was careful.

   He had saved her life more times than she could count, and now his breaths came short and hard and his eyes, on the rare occasions that they opened, were glazed over with pain. Whatever miracle Simon had wrought to claw Alec back from death was failing, and Isabelle didn’t need a _parabatai_ bond to feel her brother slipping away. It was happening right in front of her.

   “Get me some more water,” she ordered Clary, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. She refused to let her hands tremble as she pulled bottles and powders out of the shoebox-sized medical kit, but the labels were all in her tutor’s crabbed, spidery handwriting and she had never been the one to administer the potions before.

   Which ones would help Alec? And why hadn’t Hodge come back yet?

    Helplessly, Isabelle stared at the little glass bottles, her chest clenched tight around her racing heart. Beyond her, Alec groaned, shifting his head weakly on his pillow, and the soft sound stabbed her like Abbadon’s claws.

   By the Angel, why couldn’t _she_ have been the one next to Simon? She was faster than Alec – she could have pulled the idiot mundane out of the way, and Abbadon would never have touched her!

   She dropped the bottles back into the box, pressing her palm to her mouth. God _damn_ Simon for not moving faster! And damn Jace for bringing him – they could have left Simon here while they collected the Cup; if Dorothea had really run they could have chased her down an alley or wherever the Hell she went and taken it. She was barely even a witch! What could she have done? But no, they’d taken the stupid, _stupid_ mundane with no training along instead, and now Alec was paying the price for it.

   _I’ll kill both of them myself if Alec – if he –_

   Her vision blurred. She couldn’t even think the words.

   “Isabelle?” Clary asked softly.

   Hurriedly Izzy wiped her eyes. “Yes?”

   Clary held up the bowl of water wordlessly.

   Isabelle took a deep breath to steady herself. “Thank you.” She took it and dampened another cloth for Alec’s forehead, switching it for the old one. She nearly started crying again as she smoothed it over his brow.

   His eyelids flickered, but didn’t open. “Izzy...”

   “Ssh.” She bit her lip, struggling around the lump in her throat. She brushed his hair out of his face, her fingers shaking. “Just rest, Alec. The Silent Brothers will be here soon.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say _you’re going to be fine._

   He sighed but didn’t speak again, for which she was grateful. Every word he managed was broken glass being shoved down her ears, tearing her insides to ribbons. But he grew more restless, frowning, little unhappy flickers winging across his face. They hadn’t put a blanket over him because it would only irritate his wounds, but he shifted and twisted feverishly on the bed, his chest rising and falling too quickly, and Isabelle didn’t know what to _do!_

   Beside her, Clary chewed her lip – then, determinedly, took another cloth, wet it, and began cleaning the dried and drying blood on Alec’s chest. Hodge hadn’t bothered with it before, too intent first on cutting Alec’s shirt off of him and then on drawing runes that had done nothing – but it was true, he was a mess, and Isabelle instantly felt ashamed that she hadn’t thought to clean him up before. It was such an obvious thing to do.

   She was so _useless_ at this!

   She bent over to help, carefully smoothing a damp cloth over her brother’s skin, stroking away the blood bit by bit. Something sharp and prickly caught in her throat, all heat and razors, ready to snap at Clary if she was too rough with Alec – but she wasn’t. Clary was as gentle as if Alec were a priceless piece of art, and the hard, hot knot in Isabelle’s chest loosened a little at her care.

   But only a little. The horrible wounds were still _open_ – the bleeding had stopped, at least, but Izzy could see down into her brother’s insides and it made her want to be sick, want to cry. This wasn’t _right!_ It wasn’t supposed to be Alec, it was _never_ supposed to be Alec – !

   “Should we bandage him?” Clary asked tentatively, and Isabelle swallowed hard.

   “I don’t know,” she admitted, hating it but not daring to lie. “I don’t know anything about healing. M – my mother wouldn’t let Hodge teach me.”

   “Really?” Clary sounded shocked. “Why the hell not?”

   Alec made a low whimpering noise in his throat as Isabelle strayed too close to one of the holes Abbadon had punched into him; she froze, petrified. But he continued to breathe.

   “Because before her generation, that’s all women were: healers. And cooks. Housewives. They used to stay at home and bandage the wounded.” Without meaning to, her voice had become scathing, and she caught herself. If she’d been taught how to heal, she could have helped Alec. It hit her then: she would have traded all of her skill with weapons for the ability to heal her brother. She would have done it in a heartbeat.

   “I guess she was afraid that if I learned, that’s all I would ever end up doing,” she continued softly, her throat tight.

   Clary opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked as though she were biting her tongue, and Izzy wondered what it was she wanted to say.

   Alec gasped without warning, his eyes flying open, and Isabelle flinched back, certain she’d pressed too hard, broken one of Alec’s still-fragile bones, oh Raphael –

   “Jace!” Alec shouted. He tried to get up, struggling, fighting to push himself upright. His eyes were bright and wild, as if with fever. “Jace – no, stop it!” he snarled, because Clary had recovered from her shock faster than Isabelle had and grabbed Alec’s arm, trying to force him back down. “He needs me!”

   “You’ll tear yourself open!” she snarled back at him, but she was only a mundane, and Alec was winning. “Help me, for God’s sake!” she snapped at Isabelle.

   Isabelle sprang to help her, shaking her head free of cobwebs. Between them they pushed Alec back onto the bed, while he cursed them and railed, calling Jace’s name, calling for Hodge. His voice grew weaker quickly, and by the time he was flat on his back his eyelids were falling, and Isabelle’s hands were covered in his blood.

   Clary had been right: he had started his wounds bleeding again.

   “Jace,” Alec whispered, his head lolling weakly as Isabelle stared in incomprehension at her red palms. “Izzy... He...”

   “We have to stop him bleeding,” Clary said, with controlled calm. “We have to put pressure on the wounds.” She glanced at Isabelle. “Where _is_ Jace?”

   “I don’t know,” Isabelle said, dragging her mind back to the present. Red. Alec’s blood was so red. The same blood that ran through her own veins. “With Hodge, probably.”

   Clary nodded. “You should go find them,” she told Izzy – gently, as though afraid that Isabelle might break. “We need Hodge back.”

   “ _No_.” It snapped out of her like a shuriken, startling them both. Isabelle’s heart pounded. “No. I’m not leaving Alec.” What if she left him and he wasn’t alive when she came back?

   “Okay,” Clary said patiently. “Then I’ll go.”

   That was a much better idea. Isabelle nodded gratefully. “I’ll – _we’ll_ be all right,” she said firmly. Alec could hold on until Hodge came back with the Silent Brothers. She would _make_ him hold on. She took a deep breath. “We’ll be all right,” she repeated.

   Clary nodded solemnly, and was gone.

*

   But she didn’t come back. Of course she didn’t come back: she was probably lost. How was she supposed to find her way around the Institute? How was she supposed to find Hodge? It was an obvious problem, the kind of mistake that Isabelle would never have made on a hunt – but this wasn’t a hunt. There was nothing here to kill, no weapon in her hand. It was the kind of battle she didn’t know how to fight.

   Nobody came. Not Clary. Not Hodge. Not Simon. Not even Jace, and he should have been here, he should have been impossible to pry away from Alec’s side. He should have been kneeling beside the bed, feeding Alec strength through their _parabatai_ bond, playing life support the way he had in the van.

   Why wasn’t he here? Why weren’t any of them here?

   Alec didn’t wake again. His eyes fell closed and his head fell to the side, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he was dead – but his chest rose again, and fell again, rose and fell and the relief was so shattering that she cried, hiding her face in her arms to muffle her sobs so as not to wake her brother.

   She didn’t know what to do, but she did what she could. She put pressure on the wounds, because Clary had said to as if she knew what she was talking about. She was terrified of putting too much pressure, or too little – what if she couldn’t stop the bleeding; what if she broke something fragile and precious in her brother’s body? But she had to _try_. She folded dry cloths into squares and pressed them over the deep, gouging holes in Alec’s torso, biting back tears when bone ground under her touch, wiping up the spilled blood with another cloth in her free hand. She washed the sweat from Alec’s face and counted the beats of his heart and wove her will into an electrum rope, binding him into his body with gold and silver wire.

   “Raziel, intercede with your brother Raphael on behalf of your son,” she said softly, pushing Alec’s hair out of his face. The words of the old prayer she could just barely remember her mother saying tasted like chalk in her mouth. “Keep his strong heart beating. Let him burn against the dark another day.” She closed her eyes. “Hold him in your wings, Raziel,” she whispered. “Let his light not go out today.”

   But what she meant was: _Don’t die._

_Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die._

   And still no one came. Not when Alec went boneless against the sheets, slipping from sleep into real unconsciousness, heavier than lead and as solid as steel. Not when his breath grew rougher – sandpaper against stone – and shorter; quick, dry pants, shallow and laboured.

   It was agony, two wild horses lashed to her and pulling in opposite directions. Stay, or go? What if she couldn’t find Hodge quickly enough? What if Alec slipped away while she was gone? The thought of him dying was enough to break her; the thought of him dying _alone_ made her want to scream. But what if Hodge could save him, if he only came soon enough?

   What if, what if, what if?

   It was a heavy stone lodged just at the base of her throat, her uncertainty; she kept moving towards the door and then running back, unable to leave him, unable to go. If only it were a battle! If only she could gather up his injuries and turn them into a demon she could slay to make him well again! And she cursed Simon again, cursed him and cursed Jace, cursed Hodge and cursed that idiot Clary for not knowing the way and probably getting lost. Most of all she cursed herself, for being useless, helpless, worthless when her brother was dying in front of her.

   _He’s dying. He’s dying, and I can’t stop it._

The _iratzes_ Simon had drawn were fading before her eyes. One by one as she watched, inky black dissolved into silvery scar-tissue, each one another handful of breaths Alec had lost. The runes made a black-and-white countdown, checking off the remaining minutes of Alec’s life, and realisation coalesced like ice in her mind: _no one is coming._

 _No one is coming, and if I don’t do something he will die_.

   Hodge was gone. The Silent Brothers weren’t here and would never answer the summons of a child. Jace could have kept Alec alive a little longer, but he wasn’t here and he couldn’t have healed Alec even if he was. Simon wasn’t here, and the runes he’d worked into Alec’s skin were dying just like her brother.

   Small black flames, going out one by one.

   Her parents weren’t here.

   _Think, Izzy, think! Someone who can heal. Who can heal? A healer like Hodge. No. A Silent Brother. No. Vampire blood heals, but it would turn him._ She put that one aside as a matter of last resort, because she didn’t want to turn Alec without asking him but she would rather have him as a Downworlder than lose him. _A warlock could. The right kind of faerie –_

_Warlock!_

   Bane! The one who had given Alec his number; the one who had braved the Institute to come and visit her brother! Yes!

   Her stomach clenched tight with desperate hope and excitement, Isabelle tore through the shreds of Alec’s shirt; and then, when that brought up nothing, went through his jeans pockets more carefully. Neither held his phone.

   Her hope faltered then, but she hardened herself and pressed a quick kiss to Alec’s forehead. “I’ll be quick,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Don’t you dare die, Alec, or you’ll be the one explaining it to Max.”

   This time she managed to leave the room, running as fast as her feet could take her. It was different now that she had a target, an aim, somewhere to _go_ ; instead of searching the entire Institute for Hodge she flew to her brother’s room, heedless of the distance except in how far it took her from Alec. Alec’s phone was on his desk; she searched through his contacts but there were only a handful _(her, Max, their parents, Jace, Hodge)_ and none of them were Bane.

   She threw the phone down so hard she thought she heard the screen crack. Frenziedly, she tore like a whirlwind through the room, ripping through Alec’s wastepaper basket _(in case he’d thrown it out)_ , his bookshelf _(flipping through pages, maybe he’d tucked the slip of paper between them)_ , tearing his blankets and sheets off the bed _(pure desperation)_. She flung his wardrobe open and frantically searched through his pockets, trying to remember what he’d worn to the warlock’s party because maybe he’d left the number in the pocket of what he’d been wearing – but no, it wasn’t in any of them, not shirts or jeans. She ripped everything off the hangers and tossed them on the floor in a fury, a scream building in her throat, sour and sharp; then knelt down and searched through his shoes on the floor of the closet, not expecting to find anything but driven to look, just in case, _just in case._

   Nothing.

   With a snarl of frustrated terror, she slammed her fist into the floor of the wardrobe, cursing Alec for being ten kinds of idiot –

   The floor shifted.

   While her mind was still blinking with surprise her body leapt forward, her manicured nails clawing at the closet’s false bottom until it came away in her hands. At any other time she would have spent a gleeful hour or two going through the books he had hidden in the little cubbyhole, but the pounding panic in her chest crowded out her curiosity. She lunged for the copper box resting on the books instead; it was the size of a small jewellery box, but instead of gems and gold there were little keepsakes inside – a little tooth that was probably one of Max’s, a scratched dollar coin, a lock of Jace’s hair _(oh, Alec...)_ , a dark green scale she instantly recognised as belonging to the jikininki demon that was her first kill _(her eyes burned)_ , and –

_Yes! –_

   A neat little business card, white text on a black ground. When she held it up to the light the black glittered and shone, like sunlight on an oil spill, scattering rainbows. _Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn._

   It had a phone number.

   She almost tripped over the pile of clothes on her way to get to Alec’s phone.

*

   “Just a little longer, Alec,” Isabelle said desperately, her heart in her throat as she knelt next to his bed, holding his hand between hers. “Help’s coming, so just – just keep breathing, all right? Just a little longer.”

   Her brother didn’t respond. His hand was heavy, his arm completely limp, and Isabelle split her attention between Alec’s face and Simon’s runes. Were they fading faster? Was that her fear talking, or were they really burning out at a faster rate as Alec drifted closer and closer to – ?

   She squeezed her eyes shut. _Please, if there’s anyone listening – Raziel, Raphael, anybody._

 _Please don’t let him die!_ _Please!_

   “Just a little longer,” she whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear her but unable to bear the choking silence. Alec was definitely breathing more shallowly than he had been. She was sure she wasn’t imagining it.

   _Please, please, please!_

   “You are _not_ going to die,” she said fiercely, her eyes stinging. Angrily, she dashed her hand over them, wiping the tears away before they had a chance to fall. “Do you hear me? You are _not!”_

   “Isabelle?”

   She whirled up and around, drawing her whip and seraph blade in the same smooth motion. “Hofniel!” The blade snapped out in a flash of light across her body, a kris of gleaming starlight as her whip wound around her wrist and curved to the floor, a serpent of silver and gold more than ready to bite deep.

   Magnus Bane stood in the doorway, a small Gucci shoulder bag in one hand; he held himself very still, careful not to startle her again. “The front door was open.”

   Embarrassed, Isabelle lowered her weapons. “I’m sorry,” she said, and didn’t think about the strangeness of apologising to a Downworlder until later. With a flick of her wrist, her whip slithered back up her arm like a spiralling bracelet, and she pushed Hofniel back into its sheath.

   Magnus dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Under the circumstances, perfectly understandable.” Briskly, he crossed the room to the bed. His eyes – the gold in them a different shade to and nothing like Jace’s – swept over Alec’s body as he lowered his bag onto the bedside table. “You said on the phone that it was a Greater Demon that attacked him. You didn’t happen to catch its name, did you?”

   “Abbadon.” Isabelle watched anxiously as Magnus snapped open his suitcase. “Does it make a difference?”

   “Some.” The warlock’s expression was calm, but drawn tight; the professional detachment seemed to be painted on. And, Isabelle noticed, Magnus’ face was almost completely bare, with only a quick brush of dark eyeshadow on his eyelids and no glitter at all. “The more specific I can make the healing spell, the stronger the effects will be.” In fact, he didn’t look like himself at all: at his party the warlock had been wearing blue lipstick and had sparkled with bejewelled rings and shining buckles, but now he only had a plain steel ring on his little finger and the spikes in his black hair sagged – not stylishly mussed but genuinely messy, as if he’d forgotten to look in a mirror. His white t-shirt bore the declaration _I tried to be good but I got bored_ , which suited what she knew of him, but – well, it was _plain_ , and wrinkled as if it had been snatched up off the floor on the way out the door.

   It was all very reassuring, actually. If Magnus had rushed to get here, then he must care. He must be planning on doing his best.

   Magnus glanced at her. “If you could please remove all these,” he instructed, his sweeping gesture encompassing all the clothes and bandages she had used to cover the wounds, “while I prepare.”

   At some other time, she would have bristled at the peremptory tone: now she just hurried to obey, carefully wetting each piece of fabric and peeling it gently away so that it didn’t break open the fragile scabs she hoped had formed under them. But those hopes were dashed: as the bandages came free the bleeding started up again, sluggish but still horribly worrying. Alec had bled and bled, and he was so pale – she wasn’t sure he could stand to lose much more.

   She glanced worriedly at Bane. He was rubbing a bay leaf over both his hands as if it were a piece of soap while a variety of objects began levitating out of his bag: candles, a number of coloured chalks, a white-handled knife she recognised as a boline, a wooden bowl, bound bunches of dried herbs, a matched pestle and mortar of white stone... It was a very small bag, Izzy reflected, gingerly stepping out of the way as the chalk traced circles and symbols on the floor around Alec’s bed – and the walls and ceiling above it. There was no way all of that could fit without some kind of pocket-dimension spell on the bag.

   She jumped as the bay leaf caught fire and dissolved almost instantly into ash. Magnus didn’t look at her, merely holding his hands out in front of him and spreading his fingers regally. Nine more steel rings flew out of the bag and slid smoothly onto his fingers: some flashed with gems _(amethyst, tiger’s-eye, amber)_ and others were engraved with symbols that made her brain skip and flicker dizzyingly when she tried to look at them.

   Magnus closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Immediately the candles and the jewels in his rings came alight – and the room grew dark, dimming down to shadows until Isabelle couldn’t see beyond the chalk circle at all.

   But Alec murmured something wordless, and Izzy’s head snapped down to look at him, her fear dissolving like salt in water, swept aside for the huge, spiralling surge of relief and joy. _It’s already working...!_

   When she looked up again, Bane was staring at her. His yellow eyes were phosphorescent, shimmers of green and copper moving through the yellow fire like dragons swimming through magma, but Isabelle didn’t flinch. She refused to, even though his snake-slit pupils suddenly seemed very wide and deep...

   “We are between worlds now,” he said, and his voice echoed in the dark. Isabelle’s body tried to shiver, but she wouldn’t let it. “Close to the Abyss, which will help draw the poison out and send it back to where it came from originally. But it will also make it stronger, so we don’t have long.” Isabelle’s relief popped like a bubble. “There are things worse than Abbadon here, and they will come looking for the humans stupid enough to enter their realm. Keeping them out of the circle will be your job, I’m afraid. I’ll help when I can, but I need to focus on your brother.”

   _Between worlds_. Isabelle swallowed hard, and drew Hofniel again, feeling her whip begin to stretch out from her wrist like another limb. “I can do that,” she said grimly. Hadn’t she asked for a demon to fight to make Alec well? It looked like Raziel was granting her wish.

   She glanced down at Alec. _This time it’s my turn to keep_ you _safe_ , she thought. “Hofniel,” she called, and the knife flicked out. _I won’t let you get hurt again._

_I won’t let you die._

   Magnus nodded, unsurprised, and turned back to Alec. His inhuman eyes softened, just for a moment, and when he brushed back Alec’s hair the gemstones in his rings glowed like tiny stained-glass lanterns, trailing ribbons of coloured light.

   Alec sighed and turned his face into the touch. Just a tiny, kitten-like nudge, but it gave Isabelle hope.

   Magnus straightened up and pulled a necklace Isabelle hadn’t noticed out from under his shirt: a lamen, a pendant that signified a warlock’s powers and abilities. Hodge had taught them about lamens; if you could read them you had a much better idea of how to kill the wearer. But as the silver medallion hung down over Magnus’ heart, as it settled into place, it began to shimmer like sunlight on water, so bright as to render the symbols on it unreadable, bright enough that she almost missed the warlock taking one last piece of jewellery from the pocket of his jeans.

   When she saw it she inhaled sharply. At first glance the necklace could be mistaken for a rosary – a looping strand of beads with a charm hanging from it. But instead of the 59 beads of a Catholic rosary, it had 40, and the charm was not a crucifix but a golden oak leaf, so exquisitely made that it could only be faerie work. The charm could have taken nearly any form, of course, but the power in the necklace was so strong that Isabelle could feel it from several feet away, marking it out as only one possible thing: a witch’s ladder.

   Every one of those 40 jade beads – green jade, so deep and rich they were almost emerald – was a cornerstone of a deep, powerful spell, one layered in and upon itself until the ladder became a kind of instantaneous casting. Rather than spending hours preparing a Great Spell, a person could simply place the ladder around their neck and have all those hours – maybe even days or weeks or _months_ – of work and power at their fingertips at once.

   And Magnus slipped it over Alec’s head as if it were nothing. He cradled Alec’s skull in one ring-wreathed hand like Alec was something precious, but the priceless necklace he handled as if it were string and pigeon feathers.

   Isabelle was still staring at the golden leaf now resting on Alec’s chest as Magnus spread his hands and began to chant. Light, golden and green like the warlock’s eyes, began emmanating from within Alec’s wounds, streaming and bleeding from them. It began to grow stronger, brighter, and Izzy felt a heaviness in the small space, like the air before a storm. Belatedly she remembered what she was supposed to be doing, and spun around to scour the darkness for demons.

   It didn’t matter that she had her own injuries from fighting Abbadon. It didn’t matter that she was tired, hungry, hurting; that she was worried for her brother and terrified of this anti-human place she found herself in was irrelevant. Alec needed her, and if Lucifer himself came crawling up to the edge of Magnus’ circle she would shred him into confetti with her perfectly manicured fingernails because _Alec needed her_ , and that was the only thing, the _only thing_ that mattered.

   So she watched the thicker patches of darkness, the things moving out there like sharks in dark water, waiting for the first one to try its luck.

   Then behind her Alec screamed, and it all went to Hell. 

* * *

 

NOTES

Raphael, the angel Izzy calls on in her prayer, is the angel of healing and an archangel.

A jikininki is a Japanese demon that eats corpses.

Hofniel is the leader of the bene elohim, and his name means ‘fighter of God’.

Bay leaves are often used in healing magic.

A boline is a ritual blade used in Wicca and some other branches of paganism. It’s different from an athame in that athames are not (usually) used for anything but directing energy, like a wand; bolines are used for cutting wood/engraving candles, and other typical knife-type things.

The jewels in Magnus’ rings are all associated with different aspects of healing and banishing evil.

A witch’s ladder is a real thing, also known as a witch’s or druid’s rosary (and for the record, rosaries are originally Hindu and not Christian at all). Originally, and often today, they are made using some kind of string (or cord or ribbon) and knots and/or bones, feathers, flowers instead of beads. But these days you can buy or make ones that look more like the Catholic rosaries, which is, obviously, the form Magnus’ takes.

On the symbolism of Magnus’ witch’s ladder: oaks are symbols of immortality, strength, and (via the acorn), small things growing up into big and powerful ones. Catching an oak leaf before it hits the ground brings health for a whole year. Lots of different parts of an oak tree are used for healing, and the tradition of ‘knocking on wood’ is believed to come from a Native American tradition that began with oak trees, because the oak brought good luck and protected against evil. I’m not even going to BEGIN going into all the magical uses.

Jade helps with releasing suppressed emotions and boosting confidence, and is known as ‘the stone of fidelity’. It has protective properties, transforms negative energy into positive and, in ancient Mexican traditions, was believed to be able to resuscitate the dying and ressurect the dead. In pre-18th century China, bridegrooms gave their brides jade butterflies as a symbol of their love, and both parties drank from a jade cup to confirm their vows. Green jade (like the beads) are also used to express affection. Last but not least, jade is useful for communication, clearing up dysfunctional relationships (just don’t ask me how) and enhancing perception. SO. Make of that what you will.

A lamen is also a real thing, although it has been changed slightly for CoS. In reality it’s a piece of the regalia used by ceremonial magicians, especially when summoning and/or communing with spirits, and (in some interpretations) acts as the magical coat of arms for the wearer, identifying their powers and the spirits under their command. In Runed they’re worn by warlocks to identify their bloodlines and powers to each other and to the demons they might choose to work with.


	27. Interlude: Lamen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta daaaaaaaa! The second (and last) healing-scene interlude! 
> 
> A quick note for those of you not following me on tumblr, and who thus missed the announcement: although the next chapter IS written, it is more than TWICE the length of my usual chapters, and contains a hell of a lot of info that needs to be checked against canon and my notes extensively. Also, I am starting uni in a just over a week. For these and other reasons, there will be a brief hiatus before the next chapter is posted. Expect chapter 28 sometime between the 3rd and 10th of September. I'm really sorry you guys have to wait, but I promise, you would be MUCH SADDER if I posted these things as I wrote them. The quality would not be nearly so high!
> 
> So yes. Enjoy this interlude! More Malec feels for you all~

   Once upon a time, Alec had been afraid of the dark.

   He had never told anyone about it. He had never even whispered it to his soft toys, for fear of someone without cotton-stuffed ears overhearing him. He had never asked for a night-light or for his bedroom door to be left open, and hadn’t protested when his mother decided that he was too old for teddy bears and packed Fenrir the wolf into a box for the attic.

   He had been five years old. But he had already understood that Shadowhunters were not supposed to be scared of the dark. They weren’t supposed to be afraid of anything, so Alec said nothing and squeezed his eyes shut tight when Maryse flicked the light switch off at bedtime.

   He’d grown up, and he’d thought that he’d grown out of his ridiculous, childish fear. But now he was afraid again, because his worst nightmare as a child, his greatest fear, had actually come to pass:

   The darkness was inside him.

   And Alec screamed, screamed because it was agony like nothing he’d ever known. He had never felt pain like this, had no frame of reference on which to place it: the worst injury he’d ever received was a sprained arm and it might as well have been a bruise for all it prepared him for _this_ , for this sickness twisting through his veins, reaching clawed fingers for his heart, prying him apart cell by cell, and it was so _cold_ , so terribly, terrifyingly cold. He screamed as much from horror as from pain, unbearably sickened by having the shadows inside him; crawling, writhing, freezing – he wanted to claw his own skin off, rip the darkness out of himself bare-handed, vomit the poison out, but he could do nothing, none of it –

   His skin froze, brittle as frost and fragile as spun sugar: he felt it break, crack, shatter, thought he saw black oil spilling out of his ribcage like a geyser and there were faces in it, _things_ in it –

   The marrow in his bones became mercury, liquid venom, molten ice, and his bones cracked around the cold of it, fragmenting like melting ice floes –

   Icicle-claws and blizzard-teeth tore at him, shredding his insides, smashing him like a mirror and laughing and the sound of that laughter made him heave and the shards of himself spun and spun in the storm, falling forever –

   It went on forever, and he was afraid it would never stop, was afraid that it would, was afraid was afraid was afraid –

   _If we go you’re coming with us_ , it/they purred, slimy black tendrils in his ear, making his eardrums vibrate with their poison tongues. _You’ll make a lovely toy in the darkness, little Nephilim..._

   Alec _screamed_ , terrified beyond all reason, beyond words or hope or the memory of his name and the voice/s laughed and laughed, in his blood in his cells, strangling his DNA, _there’ll be no one to hear you scream in the Abyss_ , and –

   And a deep, rumbling _snarl_ tore through the shadows, a lightning bolt of sound that came blazing out of the dark and _smashed_ into the ice, plunging through and shattering it, _“You_

_Can’t_

_Have_

_Him!”_ , and it was gold, golden, not Jace-gold but lightning-gold, fire-gold, the colour of a dragon’s rage and the burning gaze of a Javan leopard wreathed in shadows and ferns and blood, baring sharp white teeth and pushing an archipelago sun into Alec’s chest with diamond-shard claws, forcing it in, singeing his ribcage black and charring his heart and the flames, the fire! They came pouring up out of Alec’s throat, searing his insides, his tongue, he screamed and fire streamed out of his mouth, he tasted ginger and saffron and choked and it was _war_ , war inside his body, snarling leopards and jaguars of flame battling jötnar, sunspot-claws against iceberg hammers. Alec’s body shook with the force of it, crying out wordlessly because the frost had taken his words, vines of ice winding through his skull, behind his eyes and an autumn storm of burning oak leaves tore through a wind-fanged blizzard, shadows and snakes and _pain_ , raw and tearing until he screamed for it to _end_ , please, just let it _stop_ –

   The heat grew and grew, the ice turned to steam that burned Alec alive and made his blood boil in his veins; he cried and his tears hissed and dissolved into the air as they touched his skin. Burning and burning and the things, the creatures in him would not let go, hissing, snarling back with their own jagged black teeth, _he is OURS_ , digging in their claws and pulling him, pulling him with them as they were driven out, no, no, please –

   “Don’t let them have me,” he gasped, his tongue thick and burned, his words sobbed out tasting of blood and ashes, but, he needed, someone, to, know – “Kill me first, _please_ – ”

   A shadowed figure bending over him; a hand on his forehead, glittering with lights that dazzled his eyes. “You’re not going to die today, Shadowhunter.” A flash of silver fell forward, hanging like a star above Alec’s face. “The Abyss can’t have you. I won’t allow it.”

   Alec closed his sore eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  He slipped back under, but his mind clung to the gleaming silver medallion he’d glimpsed in his moment of lucidity. As the war raged on, vicious and bloody and no less painful than before, Alec was able to breathe, able to orient himself in his body by that shining North star. Able to remember that there was something beyond the agony, and sometimes, in darting flashes of light and sound, able to claw his way off the battlefield beneath his skin and catch glimpses of the world beyond himself, when the pain was just too much and he had to run from it, flee from it. When he had to remind himself that he was holding on for something.

   Solar jaguars hunting crystalline frost dragons through his arteries. Claws catching on scales, ice breath snuffing out flames, claws and whipping tails and shining blue venom, anti-freeze bleeding into Alec’s veins and liver and and and –

   Ring-decked hands pulling ropes of black tar out of his wounds, sticky acidic poison spread like cat’s cradle between graceful fingers –

   Screaming. His own voice –

   A thousand thousand _things_ burrowing into his marrow, gnawing through his bones, cancerous little ticks and worms, get them OUT OF ME –

   His sister, breathing hard, snarling “You want some more, bastards? Then COME AND GET ME!” –

   _We will take you apart piece by piece and it will take your mind a thousand years to break –_

The silver pendant, swinging, glowing, etched with gleaming lines and symbols that should have made sense, but didn’t –

   _We will drink you down like the finest of wines, little Nephilim, savour every moment of your exquisite pain – we are savouring it now –_

Struggling to concentrate on the medallion’s symbols, use it as a distraction, shut out the voices by tracing the squiggles and sigils, come on, Alec, focus, read it, what does it _say_ –

   The roots of an oak tree growing around him, cocooning him, squeezing tighter and tighter, crushing bones to dust and lungs to pulp, choking on an acorn that turns into a sapling, growing up and out of his throat, suffocating, breaking his teeth and forcing his mouth open, can’t breathe –

   The medallion is a – a lam – lam something, laaaaam, _lamen_ , a lamen and every lamen has the sigil for blood, doesn’t it, he could swear Hodge taught them that, Raziel it hurts, blood for _son/daughter of_ , but the one on the medallion looks strange, odd, different –

   Stink of blood, sweat, sulphur, words that ripple and hum in his ears weaving a net to dredge him like a lake, every strand a molten garrotte wire slicing him to ribbons, oh god please STOP –

   Strange-blood, son of, son of, he can’t make it out, he doesn’t know that name-sigil –

   Amber jewels on the rings and eyes like yellow diamonds, leopard eyes; lips moving, chanting, white-noise words, words that echo and tremble like thunder and make the shadows in him writhe and shriek, biting and clawing at his flesh and there’s blood in his mouth, he’s choking on it, acidic burning blood it’s not his, it can’t be –

   Power-to-command, a number so high he doesn’t recognise the sigil for it, legions, realms, he only knows two of the nine –

   It hurts it hurts it hurts it HURTS, Raziel please, stop it, stop it stop it STOP I can’t take this make it STOP –

   “Bane, I need a little help here!” Darting, frantic, flickers of silver in the corners of his eyes –

   _We will eat you alive, Shadowhunter, over and over and over again until you forget your world ever existed –_

A wordless scream of defiance-rage from Isabelle, animal shrieks of pain and anger and hunger, teeth snapping hyena-cackling –

   _Your world’s sun will die before we let you go –_

Izzy, Izzy, wait, what are you doing, you shouldn’t, you’re supposed to be safe –

   “Magnus!” –

   Louder and louder and _louder_ , the chanting, the words, prying his skull open and shoving hot golden spikes through his eyes and he’s _screaming_ as the volcano erupts and his wounds all come alight as rivers of lava, hot hot hot white and blue flames melting the flesh off his bones –

   There’s more than one name-sigil on the lamen – how can that _be_ –

   Izzy surrounded by demons, blood on her face, holding her hands above her head and spinning faster than sound, blurring, her whip whirlwinding around her like a solar storm, a rope of the Milky Way shining bright and brighter, weaving a complete shield around her body –

   But the lamen shines brightest –

   Brightest and brighter still, blinding, white and gold and blue, bright and brighter and a hundred, a _thousand_ twisted, hideous monsters lunge away from the light and Alec can’t even scream, can’t breathe, too stunned and terrified by the _ocean_ of demons howling for blood and held back only by the star blazing forth from the medallion, from that ring-glittered hand, and he sees golden eyes searing with rage and hears a snarl, an earth-shaking _roar_ of a leopard big enough to swallow the world –

   “ _Zir kehnil-a-dë sii Mahoréle-dë ds Enaikat, norom-dë zir_ _Ἀ_ _σμοδα_ _ῖ_ _ος_ _gis_ _Enait!”_ The roar has words, words that tear at his eardrums and echo forever and ever in his bones, graven into his cells; the demons writhe and scream as if it hurts them, but do not flee, trapped by the steel grasp of that hand, that light. “ _Zir kehnil-a-dë Daveed ds Exestanser-a-darzga, ds-sii olt oxiayal-a-orseth! Zir kehnil dë Sammael ds Monons-Aoiveae-dë-A, gohuz ds oteh: LIIS IKAMIT BRIN TOS!”_

They howl, the demons, they howl and wail and _burn_ , their twisted limbs and their scales, their leathery skin and bone-barbed tails, the venom and the slime and the things too sickening to name, they burn screaming as the sun comes to this place that has never seen light and Alec has to close his eyes, close his eyes and try to be very, very small as the sun speaks, roars with the voice of Tezcatlipoca: “ _Orhorelen oteh! **LIIS**_

**_IKAMIT_ **

**_BRIN_ **

**_TOS!_ ** _”_

   They burn, and scream, and Alec clutches the memory of the medallion to himself, tracing out the lines and sigils of it in his mind almost desperately, holding it against his fear like a talisman, a dreamcatcher to banish the nightmares, Fenrir the wolf keeping him safe again –

 

 

Until finally the voice lets them flee, run, fly from the blue-gold-white fire that turns the ones too slow to ash and smoke. They all run, shrieking into the shadows, and the poison in Alec’s veins goes with it, abandoning him. For a moment he can feel their fear – Abbadon’s fear, a faint echo of it in the poison he left in Alec’s blood – and then it is gone.

   It is all gone.

   The light dims, slowly – then all at once it flickers and goes out, and the tall, proud figure who wielded it slumps over, breathing hard.

   “That was...” Izzy trails off, the awe heavy in her voice. “ _Wow._ ”

   A tired, weary chuckle. “Thank you. Just don’t ask me to do it again in a hurry.” A sigh. “Your brother is free of the poison. The rest of the healing can be done in our world. I, for one, am quite eager to go back there. You?”

   “Yes _please_ ,” Izzy said fervently.

   Alec’s body was so heavy. He wanted to speak, to say thank you, to demand to know what Izzy thought she had been doing going up against so many demons alone, but his wracked body had had enough. He strained, but couldn’t keep his eyes open; his eyelids fell like stones, heavy and final.

   He felt Izzy take his hand. “He’s breathing better,” she said softly. Through his eyelids, Alec saw more light growing – not the blinding, demon-scattering sun, but warm, familiar daylight. “Is he really going to be okay now?”

   Alec fell asleep before he could hear the answer – but he already knew.

   _You’re not going to die today, Shadowhunter._

_Thank you._

* * *

 

NOTES

Jötnar – Icelandic frost giants

The Javan leopard is the leopard species native to Indonesia.

Cookies to anyone to guessed that Magnus is speaking Enochian! He is actually speaking the demonic dialect – on the basis that Enochian is the language of angels, and the first demons were fallen angels, you get...demons speaking bastardized Enochian. Enochian is, by the way, used in some branches of ceremonial magic, and Magnus has had plenty of time to learn it. I have translated it for you, because I am such a lovely person:

_Zir kehnil-a-dë sii Mahoréle-dë ds Enaikat, norom-dë zir Ἀσμοδαῖος_ _gis_ _Enait!_ – I am of the blood of she of the Dark Heavens and the Lord your God, I am the son of [redacted], your [redacted]!

(A note-within-the-notes: _enaikat_ is a corruption of _enaiad_ , which in the original Enochian properly refers to God. _Enaikat_ is from the demonic dialect and does not refer to capital G God (although that is how it translates); it refers to the personage the demon race revere as their creator. So...not the Judeo-Christian God).

_Zir kehnil-a-dë Daveed ds Exestanser-a-darzga, ds-sii olt oxiayal-a-orseth!_ – I am of the blood of David and (one of the four) The Mother of All, she who made the throne of darkness!

(Another note-note: _Extentaser-a_ is a title, and translates as The Mother of All, which is the title of the demon queen. HOWEVER, adding _darzga_ changes the meaning to The Mother of All (one of four) – that is, specifically referring to a queen who shared the title with three others _at the same time_. (A way to differentiate her from the CURRENT Queen of Hell). So, _Extentaser-a-darzga_ means something like _one of the four queens of Hell who ruled together_ ).

_Zir kehnil dë Sammael ds Monons-Aoiveae-dë-A, gohuz ds oteh: LIIS IKAMIT BRIN TOS_ – I am blood to Sammael and The Star of His Heart, and I say this: YOU CANNOT HAVE HIM!

(Note-note 3: _Monons-Aoiveae-de-A,_ The Star of His Heart, is another title).

_Orhorelen oteh! LIIS IKAMIT BRIN TOS!_ – This is the Law (I have made)! YOU CANNOT HAVE HIM!

Tezcatlipoca – an Aztec leopard/jaguar god of sorcery.  
  
And why yes, the picture inserted into this chapter IS the design on Magnus’ lamen. Part of it, anyway...


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO MY LOVELIES! A new chapter for you! This one is LONG - the longest in the entire fic! - and some of you have probably guessed why: this chapter contains the whole of 'The Werewolf's Tale' from canon. So yes, a lot of it has been taken pretty much verbatim, because I treated it as dialogue, and those of you have read the books will have noticed that I try not to mess with the canon dialogue too much.
> 
> However, I would advise you NOT to skip through 'The Werewolf's Tale' bit. Changes have been made. And in the interest of not spoilering you that's all I'm going to say about that.
> 
> A FULL ROUND OF APPLAUSE for itsjimonbitches/starry_night88/Cassie/THE BEST BETA EVER, who finished this up for us even after a weekend of not feeling so good. Leave her cookies! :D

   _Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._

_SMASH._

   Simon jerked upright, his heart pounding. A dark grey world blurred fuzzily in front of his eyes, like a bad tv signal, and he reached hurriedly for his glasses.

   _SMASH_.

   Clumsily, he found them beside the bare pillow his head had just been resting on, and blinked as the world came into sharp focus.

   “What the hell are you doing?”

   Clary looked his way. “Oh, Simon. You’re awake.” She spoke calmly, but the frustrated rage in her eyes made him seriously consider hiding under the bed.

   Although, that might have been the way she was brandishing a freaking _chair_.

   She glanced away from him and glared at the door. “It’s locked,” she said unnecessarily. “And they took my gun away after I shot Luke, so – ”

   “You _shot Luke?_ ” Simon was briefly appalled – and then he remembered Luke’s phone call, and the conversation Clary had overheard, and wished he’d been the one pulling the trigger instead. “Why is Luke involved?”

   “That wolf we saw? Turned into Luke.” Face set grimly, Clary swung the chair again, holding it by its back and slamming it into the door.

   _SMASH._

   Simon winced, but only automatically; he was no longer paying attention. Luke? A werewolf?

   _Why not?_ He thought bitterly. _Everyone else is secretly a superhero. Why not Luke too?_ He’d thought that Luke was a Shadowhunter, but it made very little difference, as far as Simon could tell. “And you shot him?”

   “Actually, no.” Clary glared at the chair, which was not proving to be an efficient – or even an inefficient but workable – door opener. “I shot him when he refused to go back to the Institute, slung you over his shoulder, and started dragging me towards a car with tinted windows.”

   Simon stared at her, his cynicism forgotten in the wash of pure shocked rage. “He _what?”_

   “Mmhm. I ran – ” She shot him an apologetic glance; Simon waved his hand dismissively, brushing it off. In that scenario she shouldn’t have done _anything_ but run for it, and he wasn’t going to get huffy because she hadn’t been able to rescue an unconscious dead weight. “ – But one of his fucking goons grabbed me.” She put the chair down at last. “I’m pretty sure someone will have called the cops – I was kicking and screaming bloody murder, and somebody must have noticed – but...” She spread her hands helplessly.

   His hands had curled into fists without his permission, but Simon didn’t gainsay them. “I’ll kill him. He – I’ll fucking kill him.” Simiel began to glow on his arm, flickering like a spitting candle flame.

   “Only if I don’t get him first.” Clary flicked a frown at the seraph blade. “Is it supposed to do that?”

    Simon barely heard her. Luke – _Luke_. The man who’d picked him up from his first day at school and taken him to the park. He’d helped Simon with his homework and tried to teach him baseball; he’d been there for parent-teacher meetings and sick days and birthdays. When Simon was six Luke had hidden tiny chocolate eggs all over Jocelyn’s apartment for Easter.

   Trying to reconcile the man who was his father in all but name with this – with the person who’d abandoned Simon, and entertained Valentine’s Shadowhunters – he had _kidnapped Clary. Clary._ Before today Simon would have sworn that Luke loved her like a daughter. It made no sense, and Simon – Simon was getting used to the sensation of drowning. He was becoming accustomed to the constant one-eighty turns. Every time someone around him opened their mouth, it seemed like, the world turned upside-down again, left him reeling, falling.

   But this?  This was _Luke_. This _hurt._ When he was younger Simon had dreamed of Luke marrying his mom, becoming his dad. To go from that, to this... And which was it, anyway? Had something happened – had the same dark transformation that had turned New York into a demon-infested battlefield taken hold of Luke, too? Or had all those years of being Simon’s – being Simon’s _dad_ , yes, call him what he was; had being Simon’s dad been a lifelong lie?

   _I’ve already lost mom._ Simon hated himself for thinking it, but the words fell into his mind like lead weights in water. He couldn’t escape the jagged-edged ripples. _Please don’t say I’ve lost Luke as well._

_Please._

   He breathed in deeply and looked up, scrutinising the room. It was small and dirty, the stone walls marked with mould where moisture dripped from cracks in the ceiling. Besides the cot he was sitting on, there was Clary’s chair and a table that looked like a hard breath would crumble it into twigs. The only light came from a fat red candle on the table – and now Simiel. “How long have we been in here?”

   Clary glanced at her wrist. “About two hours.”

   Simon’s blood froze in his veins – not turned to ice, but stopping in its tracks, the flow stopped mid-beat. _Two hours. Two HOURS._

He swung his legs onto the floor and shoved himself off the bed, holding up his arm so Simiel’s light swung across the walls. No windows. A mirror, which he ignored.

   “Turn around,” Clary said quietly.

   Simon did so – and Simiel illuminated a wall of floor-to-ceiling bars. Now that the shadows weren’t concealing it, he got a proper look at the door Clary had been attacking: thick, grey steel.

   They were in a jail cell.

  _No wonder the chair didn’t work,_ Simon thought, dazed. He backed up and sank back down on the bed.

   “Simon?” Even in the dim light, Simon could make out her concern. “Are you feeling okay?”

   “Yeah. Yeah, I’m...just shocked.” He was still staring at the bars, his heart pounding against his ribs, hard and fast. _Jace. JACE._ Two hours. Valentine had had Jace for two hours, and Luke had stuck them in a jail cell, and – and hadn’t gone back to the Institute.

   “Did you tell him about Alec?” He didn’t know why he asked. Morbidly, masochistically, he had to know the answer. Didn’t want to, but had to.

   As if from a distance, he saw Clary nod reluctantly.

   And closed his eyes, resting his head in his hands. _Jace. Alec._ Was Alec dead already? (Was _Jace?_ No, no, don’t think about it, he can’t be, don’t THINK about it!)How long could Simon’s _iratzes_ have held out? Surely not two hours. But with Hodge gone, with Luke dragging them away, Izzy all alone...

   _Kal-El, if you’re up there, please let the Silent Brothers have come and helped. PLEASE._

   “You should have killed him,” he heard himself say.

   “Who? Luke?” Clary sounded confused, and a little wary.

   No surprise there. When had Simon ever been so bloodthirsty? _Everything’s changing._ “No. Hodge.” Had Hodge even sent a message to the Silent Brothers at all? He’d claimed he was going to, but in the blur of giving Jace to Valentine, Simon didn’t think Hodge had actually done it. _But they must have ways of knowing when a Shadowhunter needs help,_ he told himself, not sure he believed it. _They must._

   Alec couldn’t _die._

   Simiel’s light flared just as Clary said “Someone’s coming.”

   Simon’s head snapped up as the sound of footsteps reached him too. Without thinking he stood up, drawing Simiel in the same smooth motion; he hissed its name and stepped forward as the blade extended, a splinter of fiery diamond. “Get behind me.”

   “Excuse me?” She’d lowered her voice to match his, but altering the volume did nothing to disguise her outrage.

   “You don’t have your gun right now,” he snapped at her. He heard feathers rustling, the flexing of huge wings and the soft crash of black waves on red sand. “And trust me, no one is getting through me.” _Geh ciaofin vl?_ “Even Mystique accepts help sometimes, Clary. So come on!”

   The footsteps grew louder, a shoe scuffing on stone, and without another word Clary darted behind him, her anger covering a sharp edge of fear that made Simon burn.

   _No one is getting through me._ He was only human, but he felt the ghosts of black wings flare from his shoulders, stretching wide and wider in the shadows, blocking anyone or anything from getting at Clary, and Simiel shone like a star in his hand, its edge sharp enough to skin the wind –

   _I’ll burn them all before I let a single one of them touch you – !_

   The person coming down the hallway was carrying a lamp, but Simiel outshone it; when the two spheres of illumination touched Simiel swallowed the other as the sun would a spark, and Simon heard-felt a snarl catch in his throat as the mingled glow lit up a familiar face.

   Luke.

   He looked no different: same worn jeans, same ridiculous denim shirt, same battered boots and careless haircut. Same glasses on the bridge of his nose, just like always. But now there was a large, ragged square of scar tissue on the side of his throat, shiny like plastic in the light, and Simon caught himself staring at it as Luke opened the cell door and stepped inside.

   “Are you going to use that on me, Simon?” he asked quietly.

   “That depends.” Cold and sharp as glass, as bits of broken ice. “Are you going to let us go?”

   “I’m not holding you prisoner.” At Simon’s pointed glance at the bars, Luke smiled a little. “Those are for your protection. Did you know that Valentine had people following you?” he asked abruptly.

   “What I’d love to know is just why you think I’ll believe a word you say.” Simon didn’t relax his grip on his blade; if anything, he thought Simiel might be sticking itself to his fingers, a firm steel force as if the crystal were magnetised to the bones in his hand.

   Deep, wounded hurt moved over Luke’s face. He sighed, and tiredly brushed his hand across his forehead. “I guess I deserve that.”

   “You do.” Clary’s furious voice came from over Simon’s shoulder. “That and more. You _kidnapped_ us!”

   “I had no choice. Valentine’s spies were minutes away; if we hadn’t gone immediately they would have found and overwhelmed my people, and taken you themselves. And I promise you would not enjoy that.” Luke looked past Simon to Clary. “You’re a mundane, Clary. Valentine would have killed you out of hand once he had Simon. I’m sorry I scared you, but I couldn’t let that happen.”

   Simon found his righteous anger faltering a little, suddenly uncertain. “And earlier?” he demanded, trying to find his rage again. “When you told me I wasn’t your responsibility, that I was better off on my own? Were there spies coming then, too?”

   Luke looked tired. “They were right outside my house. I had to get you off the phone, I didn’t know if they could hear me – there are runes to grant incredible hearing – ” He glanced at Simiel with a wry little smile. “I presume you know all about runes by now?”

   “A bit.” Slowly, Simon lowered his arm, although his grip on Simiel stayed tight.

   “I came looking for you,” Luke said. “The moment they were gone. But you weren’t at Clary’s – I nearly went insane trying to find you, you weren’t with any of your friends – ”

   “I was at the Institute. For a while.” The fight had gone out of Simon. And as his hallucinatory wings folded up and vanished his body remembered its exhaustion, its injuries. Abbadon, healing Alec, the power it had taken to get out of Hodge’s cage, the fight in the alley – the relief, the soft whisper of _it’s okay, dad will take care of it_ made his knees buckle.

   “Simon!” Clary caught him around the waist, and nearly as quickly Luke had crossed the room, leaving the lantern on the table. Between them they got Simon back onto the bed, although Simiel wouldn’t leave his hand; Simon’s grip slackened, but the hilt stayed stubbornly glued to his fingers. The blade refusing to leave him undefended, even now that it seemed they were – finally – safe.

   “I’m fine, I’m fine...” Simon mumbled, sighing as Luke pressed his palm to Simon’s forehead.

   “You’re not feverish, at least. Thank the Angel for small mercies.” Luke looked up at Clary. “If you’d knock on the wall, someone will bring us in some food.”

   Puzzled, Clary obeyed, knocking firmly at the wall Luke indicated. Sure enough, within moments a man appeared bearing a tray, which he set down on the rickety table. The smell of the dishes made Simon’s stomach rumble.

   “Simon, Clary, this is Alaric, my third,” Luke introduced them.

   “We have met.” Alaric dipped his head towards Clary, and then Simon.

   “We have?” Simon pushed himself up on his elbows, examining the man. He was massive, taller than Luke but dressed in the same casual clothing: cotton and denim, with a similarly messy haircut. “Where?”

   “The Dumort.” Clary was staring at Alaric intently. “Remember?”

   Simon didn’t.

   “You put your knife in my ribs,” Alaric said with a smile. The light highlighted his salt and pepper hair.

   Simiel _blazed_ , cold white fire that drove all the shadows out of the room. Clary jumped at the sudden influx of light, and Luke and Alaric both flinched.

   “Could you turn that down?” Luke asked, his voice strained.

   Simon remembered how his seraph blade had burned the vampires, and hastily snapped Simiel back into its dowel form, strapping it into his vambrace. The light dimmed, but shifted and flickered mutinously. Simon had the distinct sensation that if the sword could talk, it would have been muttering uncomplimentary things about its weilder’s intelligence. “Sorry.”

   “Don’t be,” Alaric said, apparently deciding that the apology was for stabbing him. “It was an excellent throw.” He withdrew Jace’s dagger from his breast pocket, proffering it to Simon hilt-first. “I think this is yours?”

   Simon’s fingers closed around it before his mind had caught up with the moment. His throat ached, and he resisted the urge to clutch the knife to his chest: not only would he look like an idiot, but it was a stupid thing to do with something so sharp.

   And yet... _Jace!_

   “I cleaned the blade,” Alaric told him, obviously worried he’d somehow upset Simon.

   “Alaric,” Luke said quietly, “could you please take Clary to get something to eat? I think Simon and I need to talk.”

   “Of course, sir.” Alaric straightened up and offered his arm to Clary. “Miss?”

   Clary hesitated.

   “If there’s any big revelation, you know I’ll share it,” Simon promised her quietly.

   Clary exhaled. “All right then.” Lifting her chin firmly, she deliberately took Alaric’s arm. “Lead on,” she said imperiously, and allowed the werewolf to guide her out of the cell and out of sight.

   Watching her leave, Simon’s gut twisted anxiously, and Simiel glimmered unhappily. _She’ll be fine,_ Simon thought – and then wondered if talking to his sword meant he’d finally lost it.

  _Like it makes any difference at this point_.

   “In retrospect, perhaps the raid on the Dumort was not as well planned as it might have been,” Luke said finally, when Alaric and Clary were gone. “The moment I caught a whisper of where you might be, I sent my wolves to bring you back here, and help you if you ran into danger.” He sighed. “So when you went into the Dumort...”

   “Your wolves.” Simon was exhausted. And his cheek... He carefully raised his hand to his face, and found a clean bandage and only dull pain. “Alaric called you sir.”

   “We tended your injuries while you were unconscious,” Luke said, following the gesture. “And mine.” He pulled back the collar of his shirt to show Simon a flash of white bandages. “I didn’t know Clary knew how to shoot.”

   “Your wolves,” Simon repeated. He didn’t want to talk about Clary. Not now.

   His hand tightened on Jace’s dagger. _Two hours._

   Luke sighed. “Yes. My wolves. I’m the alpha of this pack.”

   Simon nodded slowly. He’d guessed as much. He thought about asking how long Luke had been alpha – how long he’d been a werewolf – but it really didn’t matter to him. Luke was a werewolf. Okay. Simon’s mom was a demon hunter and Simon was something that spoke the language of angels and had magic tattoos showing up on his skin after dreams. Comparatively, werewolves weren’t that big a deal.

   “I would have told you,” Luke said. “But your mother was adamant that you know nothing of Shadowhunters or the real world. I couldn’t explain away my being a werewolf as some kind of isolated incident, Simon. It’s all part of the larger pattern that your mother didn’t want you to see. I don’t know what you’ve learned – ”

   “A bit,” Simon murmured. Tired. _Jace_. “I know mom was a Shadowhunter, which makes me sort of one too. She was married to Valentine; he stole the Cup and she stole it from him and ran off with it and me. She took me to Magnus Bane every two years to keep me from seeing the Shadow World. I know Hodge is a traitor who gave Jace – ” His voice broke on Jace’s name, broke like glass, and the shards cut into his throat so that he had to stop, and breathe, and try not to remember the sight of his _erastes_ vanishing through the Portal, before he could continue. “A traitor who gave Jace to Valentine. He gave him the Cup, too, only it’s still in the card so he can’t use it yet.” He blinked, loss and fear for Jace a vicious fist in his chest, making it hard to think of anything else. “I know that Clary told you about Alec, and you wouldn’t go back for him. I know that you told Valentine’s people that mom didn’t matter to you, when they wanted to trade her for the Cup.”

   _I know there’s something inside me that isn’t human. Isn’t RIGHT. Or is maybe too right, too big and too – much. Hodge said ‘he’ did something to me, and I don’t know who that is but I’m willing to bet it was Valentine, because it’s all been Valentine. I know it scares me and I know I need it, and I know that if I don’t get Jace back I’ll die._ But he didn’t say that.

   “Hodge gave Valentine the Cup?” Luke asked, shocked.

   “And _Jace_ ,” Simon snapped, something clean and bright cutting through his muggy exhaustion. “He gave Valentine _Jace_ , and I don’t know where he is, and his _parabatai_ is in the Institute dying if not dead because _you wouldn’t go back for him_. What the _fuck_ , Luke?”

   “I don’t know who Jace is,” Luke said carefully, watching Simon almost – almost warily. “But I told you, Simon. Valentine’s people were coming. I had to get you out of there.”

   “Alec was _dying!_ ” Simon shouted. “Christ, he still _is_ , he could be – he could be dead by now because he got hurt _saving my life_ , and you – you left him there like he was trash!”

   Simiel’s light touched Luke’s face, and his eyes – Luke’s eyes were hard, unfamiliar and cold. A stranger’s eyes, and Simon remembered the voice Luke had used on the phone all those days ago. The way he had spoken, as if Simon meant nothing to him. Did he know Luke at all, really?

   Was Clary safe with Alaric?

   When Luke finally replied, his voice was cold. “He wasn’t worth the risk.”

   Simon jerked away from him, repulsed. And confused, shocked, sickened.

   “I didn’t know where the Cup was,” Luke continued. Going back to their earlier exchange, as if the matter of Alec was now settled. “Your mother never told me. And Valentine doesn’t bargain. He never has. If the advantage isn’t his, he won’t even come to the table. There was nothing I could have done to make him give up Jocelyn.”

   Simon was no longer sure he could believe Luke. Or rather, he wasn’t sure he could _trust_ Luke, and that was worse. That bit deep and bled him, down in the dark where he was so, so tired.

   “You know how I said I know a bit?” Simon asked. He kept his voice even, but it was a struggle. Did he have any choice but to sit here? Where could he go – back to the Institute? Who could help him there? Even if Alec wasn’t dead, he and Izzy would be in no condition to help track down Valentine – even if they could. “I think I need to know everything.”

   Luke nodded slowly.

   And told him.

*

   “I’ve known your mother since were children. We grew up in Idris – I swear it’s the most beautiful place in the world, and I’ve always regretted that you’ve never seen it. You’d love the pines in winter, the dark earth and cold crystal rivers. There’s a small network of towns and a single city, Alicante, where the Clave meets. They call it the Glass City because its towers are shaped from _adamas_ , the same demon-repelling substance as our steles and seraph blades. In the sunlight they shine like diamond.

   “My family were nobodies, farmers in the countryside, but I wanted more than anything to be a Shadowhunter. So when I was old enough I went to school in Alicante. That’s where I met Jocelyn, and it’s where I met Valentine.

   “He was older than I by a year. By far the most popular boy in school. He was handsome, clever, rich, dedicated, an incredible warrior. A Morgenstern – one of the greats, descended from Jonathan Shadowhunter’s _agela_. I’d grown up hearing his family name in the sagas, in the stories my mother used to tell me. Meeting him was like meeting a god. And I was nothing – neither rich nor brilliant, from an unremarkable country family that didn’t even have a crest.

   “Those from the old families are trained from birth to become Shadowhunters. Valentine was memorising runes and learning how to wield a crossbow while I was herding sheep and milking cows. Most of those at the academy were like him – Hightowers and Penhallows and Herondales, people with _names_ , boys and girls who were bred to kill demons. They were faster and stronger than the handful of us who came from outside the caste. Even their runes were more powerful than ours. And I struggled more than most: I could not bear the lightest Marks or learn the simplest techniques, no matter how I tried. I thought sometimes about running away, returning home in shame, or becoming a mundane. I was that miserable.

   “It was Valentine who saved me. He came to my room – I’d never even thought he knew my name. He offered to train me. He said he knew that I was struggling, but he saw in me the seeds of a great Shadowhunter. And under his tutelage I did improve. I passed my exams, bore my first Marks, killed my first demon.

   “I worshipped him. I thought the sun rose and set on Valentine Morgenstern, and I wasn’t the only one. There were others he rescued. Hodge Starkweather, who got along better with books than he did with people. Maryse Trueblood, whose brother had married a mundane. Robert Lightwood, who was terrified of the Marks – Valentine brought them all under his wing. I thought it was kindness, another sign of his greatness, but now I think he was building himself the beginnings of an army.”

   “Were they all from – ” How had Luke put it? “ – outside the caste? Like you?”

   Luke shook his head. “I was the only one in the inner circle.” He smiled wryly. “So to speak. It made me feel special. I was proud to be accepted into the lofty ranks.”

   Simon said nothing. He’d never felt the need to be popular, or be accepted. He had Clary, and Eric, Matt, and Kirk; the thought of pining for the approval of the stuck-up dickheads at St Xavier’s... He had no idea how that would feel. Or why someone would care so much about something that so clearly didn’t matter.

   “Valentine was obsessed with the idea that in every generation there were fewer and fewer Nephilim,” Luke went on. “That we were a dying breed. He was sure that if only the Clave would use Raziel’s Cup more freely, more Nephilim could be made. To the teachers this was sacrilege – it is not for just anyone to choose who can and cannot become a Nephilim. Flippantly, Valentine would ask: why not make all men Nephilim, then? Why keep that power selfishly to ourselves?

   “When the teachers answered that most humans cannot survive the transition, Valentine claimed they were lying, trying to keep the power of the Nephilim limited to an elite few. That was his claim then – now I think he probably felt the collateral damage was worth the end result. In any case, he convinced our little group of his rightness. We formed the Circle, with our stated intent being to save our race from extinction. Of course, being seventeen, we weren’t quite sure how we would do it, but we were sure we’d eventually accomplish something significant.

   “And then Valentine’s father was killed in a routine raid on a werewolf encampment.

   “When Valentine returned to school after the funeral, he wore the red Marks of mourning. But the change was deeper than that. His kindness was now interspersed with flashes of rage that bordered on cruelty. I put his new behaviour down to grief and tried harder than ever to please him. I never answered his anger with anger of my own. I felt only the sick sense that I had disappointed him.

   “The only one that could calm his rages was your mother. She had always stood a little apart from our group, sometimes mockingly calling us Valentine’s fan club. That changed when his father died. His pain awakened her sympathy, and they fell in love.

   “Between us, we must have made an impression. Valentine chose me to become his _parabatai_ , and I was overjoyed; I accepted immediately. It was the happiest day of my life. Not long after, he and your mother became _parastathentes_ , and I was happy for them both. They were my closest friends – ”

   “Wait.” Simon paused, unable not to hear Alec’s voice in his head – wet and painful, struggling to speak because he thought – knew – that he was dying. _‘Couldn’t let your_ parasta – parastathentes _die.’_

 _‘He’s not my_ parastathentes _, Alec.’_

_‘Not yet. Gonna be.’_

   “What does that mean?”

   “ _Parastathentes?”_ When Simon nodded, Luke explained. “I take it you know about _parabatai_? Warriors who fight together. Friends who would die for each other. _Parastathentes_ are the other side of the bond – it literally means ‘lovers who stand beside’ in Greek. As in, stand beside each other in battle.”

 _'He’s not my_ parastathentes _, Alec.'_

_'Not yet. Gonna be.'_

   Simon swallowed hard around the sharp, jagged spike in his throat. “Is that how Shadowhunters get married?”

   “Sometimes. Not always. In the old days you could be married _and_ have a _parastathentes_. Sometimes they were the same person, and sometimes they weren’t. But there’s no divorce for a _parastathentes_ bond, or a _parabatai_ one, for that matter. The only things that can break it are death or becoming a mundane.”

   Something unreadable flickered across his face, and he raised his left hand as if to touch his right forearm. “Or becoming a Downworlder,” he murmured, dropping his hand without completing the motion. His expression smoothed out so quickly that Simon wasn’t sure if he’d seen it. “Which is what the _harpagmos_ is for – one of the pair pretends to kidnap the other – ” Simon sat up sharply at that, “and you go out into the wilderness for two months –  just the two of you, with no one else. To make sure you’ll be able to stand each other forever, I suppose.” He smiled a little. “Something like an engagement period.”

   _Harpagmos_. Simon knew that word, but he hadn’t remembered where he’d heard it until Luke mentioned the kidnapping.

_‘And when all this is over,’_ _Jace’s voice, hot against Simon’s throat_ _, ‘we’re going to play a little game called_ _harpagmos_ _.’_

_‘Oh? How do you play?’_

_‘It’s very simple. In fact, you don’t have to do anything at all. But at some point, when you’re least expecting it...’ A bite, sharp and sweet and Simon gasps. ‘I’ll strike.’ A low murmur, heated satin. ‘And take you. Make off with you, abduct you. On your walk to school, at your band practise – maybe even while you’re asleep in bed. You’ll wake up with my hand over your mouth, and I’ll steal you away.’_

   “When the two months are over, you perform the ritual to forge the bond – if you haven’t killed each other. But because the _harpagmos_ takes so long, and because it’s so permanent... Most people prefer to just get married. It’s easier.”

   Every time Simon had reassured himself or Clary by saying he and Jace weren’t getting married... And the whole time, Jace was already planning something _even more permanent_ than a marriage. Than a _marriage_.

   “So _parastathentes_ are rare – even rarer than _parabatai_ , and there’re few enough of those,” Luke continued. “Everyone was overjoyed for your mother and Valentine. And together, the three of us – when you have a network of _parabatai_ and _parastathentes_ bonds, you forge an _agela_. The ultimate Shadowhunter force. It’s how our world, the Nephilim’s world, was formed: Jonathan Shadowhunter, the first of us, surrounded by his _parabatai_ and his _parastathentes_ , bound to them and, through them, to the rest of his _agela_...

   “Together we were unstoppable. I took a new name for myself when I graduated – Graymark – and the three of us... We were the first _agela_ in decades. We killed monsters no one else could touch. Valentine and Jocelyn married, and moved into her family’s estate; passer’s by turned to watch me in the street. Everything was perfect.

   “The Circle continued, and grew. Valentine grew with it. Its ideals had changed; the Circle still clamoured for the Mortal Cup, but since the death of his father Valentine had became an outspoken proponent of war against all Downworlders, not just those who broke the Accords. This world was for humans, he argued, not part demons. Demons could never be fully trusted.”

   Just like Hitler, Simon thought, being burned by a single or handful of Jews – a prostitute, or the admissions department at the university he wanted, historians debated a dozen different theories but the point was, Hitler had taken an insult from an individual or small group and turned it into a hatred of a whole people. A werewolf killed Valentine’s father, and Valentine responded by deciding all Downworlders were evil. It made no logical sense.

   “I was uncomfortable with the Circle’s new direction, but I stuck with it,” Luke said. “It was the best time of my life. I was part of something incredible... I ignored my uncertainties, and I shouldn’t have. It grew worse. _We_ grew worse: Michael Wayland was as uncertain as I, but Robert and Maryse – now married – egged Valentine on. We hunted Downworlders tirelessly, seeking those who had committed even the slightest infraction. Valentine never killed a creature that had not broken the Accords, but he did other things. I saw him fasten silver coins to the eyelids of a werewolf child, blinding her, in an attempt to get the girl to tell him where her brother was... I saw him – ”

   “I don’t need to hear it,” Simon heard himself say, sickened. As much by Luke as by these tales of Valentine. _Valentine never killed a CREATURE who had not broken the Accords_ – Luke was a werewolf, and he still called them _creatures_ instead of _people_. Was that sad, or sick?

   Luke looked started by the interruption. “No... Of course you don’t. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “What happened next was that Jocelyn became pregnant.

   “The day she told me that, she also confessed that she had grown afraid of her husband. His behaviour had turned weird, erratic. He would disappear into their cellars for nights at a time. Sometimes she would hear screams through the walls...

   “When I went to him, he laughed. He said that Jocelyn’s were the fears of a woman carrying her first child. Pregnancy jitters. We were still trying to clean out the nest of werewolves who had killed his father years before, and he invited me to hunt with him that night.”

   Luke fell silent for a moment. A breath. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost soft. “He was my _parabatai_. When he promised to guard my back that night, I believed him. And so I didn’t see the wolf until it was on me.

   “I remember its teeth in my shoulder, and nothing else of that night.

   “When I woke, I was lying in Valentine’s house, clean and bandaged. Jocelyn was there.”

   He sighed. “Not all werewolf bites result in lycanthropy. I healed of the injury and waited weeks for the full moon, in torment. The Clave would have locked me in an observation cell, if they’d known, but my _agela_ kept silent. But their silence wasn’t enough a spell to stop me from changing when the moon rose, and then – then, they weren’t my _agela_ any longer.”

   This time he did touch the spot on his arm, the gesture so reminiscent of Jace – touching what Simon now guessed was his _parabatai_ rune, asking Alec to intercept Simon – that Simon’s heart hurt. “The first change is always the worst, but that was what hurt the most. Feeling our _agela_ break, my _parabatai_ bond snapping like a steel string in my chest as the change took me over. You can’t imagine the loss. Ever since we spoke the oath I had always been able to feel Valentine, and then through his bond to her, Jocelyn. And then it was gone, an agony a thousand times worse than feeling my bones break into new, wrong shapes.

   “It was like...like feeling part of my heart die.

   “I woke up hours later in a meadow miles from the city. Covered in blood. When I made my way back to the manor Jocelyn fell on me, weeping, but Valentine pulled her away. I could still taste raw meat in my mouth. I don’t know what I had expected – they were my _agela_ , my everything – but I should have known.

   “Valentine dragged me down the steps and into the woods with him. He told me – he told me that he ought to kill me himself, but, seeing me then, he could not bring himself to do it. He gave me a dagger that had once belonged to his father. He said I should do the honourable thing and end my own life. He kissed the dagger when he handed it to me, and went back inside the manor house.

   “He barred the door.

   “I think I went mad, then. A little. Instead of following his suggestion I ran through the night, changing uncontrollably, until I burst into the midst of the werewolf encampment, armed only with the dagger. I demanded to meet in combat the one who had turned me, and they laughed. They pointed me to the alpha, and he rose to face me.”

   He shook his head. Simon could hardly believe what he was hearing – even after all he’d been through, trying to imagine calm, sensible Luke, Luke with his glasses, hunting down werewolves – it was mad. “I wanted only to die. I thought that I was sure to: I had never been much for single combat. The crossbow was my weapon; it was Valentine who was skilled in fighting hand to hand. I thought – some part of me thought that if I could die, and take with me the creature who had ruined me – if I could kill the wolves who had murdered his father, perhaps my _parabatai_ would mourn me.

   “But he wasn’t my _parabatai_ any longer, and I lived. I killed the old alpha, and werewolf law made me the pack’s new leader. I watched them all kneel to me and decided that a new life – any life – had to be better than death. So I took it.

   “I left my old life behind and almost forgot what it was like to be a Shadowhunter.” Simon didn’t believe that for a moment – not with the way Luke spoke, the words he chose and the casually dismissive, derogatory air he took when talking about Downworlders. But he didn’t care enough right now to argue.

   “But I didn’t forget Jocelyn,” Luke continued. “I couldn’t. I feared for her in Valentine’s company, and yet there was nothing I could do: if I came near the manor house the Circle would kill me. But in the end she came to me instead.

   “My second in command came to tell me that there was a young Shadowhunter woman waiting to see me. It could only have been one person, and when I went to meet her, there she was, pale and drawn. No longer pregnant.” Luke watched Simon’s face carefully. “Jocelyn told me that soon after I’d left, they had discovered that she was carrying twins. Two boys: Jonathan and Janim Christopher.”

   Simon stiffened. “I have brothers?” he whispered. For a moment – for a moment that was bigger even than Jace’s unknown predicament, his need of rescue. _I have brothers?_ Not just one, but _two?_ His mind reeled, spinning, immediately trying to picture them. A mix of his mother’s warm, best-loved face and the cruel beauty he’d seen in Valentine. _Brothers?_

   Something nagged at him. Something about Valentine. Something about the man’s children...

   Luke wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Let me finish the story, Simon.

   “Suffice to say, it was an emotional reunion. Jocelyn was angry with me for not letting her know I was still alive – Valentine had told the Circle that I had taken my own life, but she had not believed it. When she heard rumours of a werewolf who had once been a Shadowhunter, she had come looking for me. She was worried that Valentine might hear the rumours too, and hunt me down, but he never did. To this day I’m not sure if he heard them and didn’t care, or if he was too busy with his plots and plans to take notice of the whispers.

   “After that I began to meet with Jocelyn in secret. It was...it was another very good time for me. Her parents had moved out of the Fairchild manor when she and Valentine married; they lived then in a small house close to the edge of Alicante, and we met there, almost every week. Her parents kept my secret, never breathing a word to anyone about my visits. They were always good people, my parents away from home while I was at school.

   “Jocelyn would bring the twins, and that was the only dark spot in our time together, because she hated Jonathan. She insisted that something was wrong with him, wouldn’t touch him unless her mother or I forced her to. She wouldn’t...feed him, wouldn’t let him sleep in the same room as Janim. She was convinced that Valentine had done something to him, turned him into a monster.

   “I never understood it. He always seemed a perfectly normal baby to me. It broke my heart to see him cry for your mother, the way she would put her hands over her ears or leave the room. I couldn’t understand why she hated him so much – I didn’t see how any parent could hate their child the way she did. Jocelyn’s mother tried to reassure me, said that some mothers grew depressed after they gave birth, but it seemed too much for that. And she was never anything but loving with Janim.

   “Valentine was always away, or busy: he never seemed to notice Jocelyn’s visits. I had the sense that they were growing apart, and I think I began to hope that she might leave him. It was the year before the Accords were due to be signed again, and when he wasn’t in the cellars in the middle of the night he was courting the powerful Shadowhunter families, collecting support. He didn’t want the Accords renewed, and he spent almost all of his time campaigning for that end.

   “But then one day, barely three months after the twins were born, Jocelyn came to her parents’ house happier than I had seen her since the early days of her marriage. She told me that she had hope that Valentine was going to change his ways, that he had left his sanctum in the cellars the night before, and...” Luke coloured slightly. “Well, it must have been a truly special night, because she was alight with happiness, sure that Valentine loved her again the way he used to, that things were going to go back to the way they used to be.

   “I always thought it was strangely naive of her. I couldn’t imagine what he’d done, how one night could erase all her suspicions and fears. It wasn’t like her at all. I began to wonder if he had actually cast some spell on her, but if so then it had already started wearing off by the time she discovered she was pregnant with you.

   “She glowed all through her pregnancy, but all her old fears had returned by then. Valentine was still courting votes and support, and strange noises still came from beneath the house. Nothing had changed – if anything, he’d grown worse. And as you grew inside her, she became more and more paranoid that something was wrong with you. That you would be...wrong, somehow, like Jonathan. She even worried that Jonathan might do something to hurt you. Jonathan! He was a baby! He couldn’t even walk yet, but she stopped going near him. One night she even tried to leave him at her mother’s, but that Valentine would not stand for: he rode up in the middle of the night and swept Jonathan up out of his crib, and galloped home with him.

   “After that Jocelyn’s parents moved back into the manor to help watch the twins, and I didn’t see Jocelyn for a while. Not until after you were born.

   “You were just a few weeks old when I saw you for the first time. Jocelyn’s parents were back in their own home, and I snuck in to visit while Valentine was out of the city. You were so small in your crib; I couldn’t believe how small. When I picked you up I was afraid I might break you. You’d been born a month early, probably because of the stress your mother was under... God, you were tiny.

   “Your brothers had just started learning to walk. Most Nephilim babies go straight to walking, without bothering with crawling. Both the twins were still shaky with it, but Jonathan – when he saw me holding you, his whole face lit up. I think he’d never been allowed to really see you before. He wobbled halfway across the room so he could hold my chair and try to look at you. I knelt down on the floor so he could see better, holding you in my arms. I almost hated Jocelyn then, seeing how happy he was just to look at the little brother who’d been denied to him. She hated him so much, for no reason. It had been nearly a year; I didn’t think post-partum depression could last that long. Maybe there was something wrong with _her_ , not her son. Maybe Valentine had done something to her.

   “I worried about that for months. It was just like when the Circle had been turning darker – life was wonderful, but I was afraid, and again I couldn’t bring myself to speak about it, to confront Jocelyn more firmly. I told myself that if she ever hurt Jonathan, I would do something. I would even send a message to Valentine if I had to. He was a monster, but his son wasn’t. Jonathan didn’t deserve Jocelyn’s coldness.

   “But you – you were perfect. You almost never cried, and you _hummed_.” Luke smiled, his eyes far away, watching the past. “It was the funniest thing. Long before you should have been able to speak you were making little sounds, all the time. I would walk in to fetch you for Jocelyn, and you would be humming the tune of your favourite lullaby to yourself. Sometimes it was a tune I’d never heard before. And you loved music. If you did cry, you would always stop when your grandmother played the piano for you, or someone sang to you. Music was your favourite thing, and both your brothers knew that. Whenever your grandparents taught them a new rhyming song they would run to sing it to you in your crib so you could hear it too. Jonathan would sneak into your room when Jocelyn wasn’t looking and hum lullabies when you wouldn’t sleep. At Yule I helped Janim make you a little mobile covered in bells... There were days when I caught myself thinking that all three of you were mine, that my visits with Jocelyn were my real life and the pack was a dream.

   “But it was the other way around. The Accords were coming closer and closer – and then Jocelyn brought the news that, unable to stop the Accords from taking place, the Circle had allied with demons to disrupt them. The worst enemies of our people, and Valentine turned to them to gain weapons that could be smuggled into the Great Hall of the Angel, where the Accords would be signed. And with the aid of a demon, Valentine stole the Mortal Cup, leaving a fake in its place. It was months before the Clave realised the Cup was missing, and by then it was too late.

   “We couldn’t discover what Valentine planned to do with the Cup, or where he had hidden it. But we knew he meant to lead the Circle in an attack upon the unarmed Downworlders come to sign the peace treaty, and murder them all in the Hall. The Accords would never survive such wholesale slaughter.

   “So we spread the news through the Downworld. Jocelyn and I sent messages – covertly – to the faeries and the warlocks. She even – without me, because our natures make us enemies – went to meet with the vampires, warning them of Valentine’s plans and bidding them to prepare for battle.

   “On the day of the Accords, I watched from a hidden place as Jocelyn and Valentine left the manor house. I remember how she bent to kiss your head, cradled in your grandmother’s arms. I remember the way the sun shone on her hair; I remember her smile.

   “They rode into Alicante by carriage; I followed on four feet, and my pack ran with me. The Great Hall of the Angel was crowded with the assembled Clave and score upon score of Downworlders. The Downworlders, at least, were prepared when Valentine rose to his feet and drew his weapons, prepared for the Circle members who rose with him. But the Clave was not, and it was chaos. Jocelyn flung open the doors of the Hall and my pack and I rushed in to the madness, faerie knights with weapons of glass and twisted thorns on our heels, and – miracle of miracles – Night Children with bared fangs at our sides. Warlocks wielded flame and iron, and all of us fell on the Circle like a crashing wave.

   “We tried not to harm those innocents who were not part of the Circle, the Shadowhunters who had no alliance with Valentine. But many died, and I fear we were responsible for some. Afterward we were blamed for many, but it was impossible not to make mistakes in the pandemonium. There were far more Circle members than we had imagined, and they refused to surrender even when they saw the force rallied against them. They would rather die than see the Accords signed.

   “We gave many of them their wish.

   “I fought through the crowd to Valentine. My only thought had been of him – that I be the one to kill him, that I have that honour. I found him at last by the great statue of Raziel, dispatching a vampire with a quick flash of his bloodstained sword, piercing the creature’s heart. When he saw me, he smiled. ‘A werewolf who fights with sword and dagger,’ he said, ‘is as unnatural as a dog that eats with a fork and knife.’

   “ ‘You know the sword; you know the dagger,’ I said. ‘And you know who I am. If you must address me, use my name.’

   “ ‘I do not know the names of half men,’ he said contemptuously. ‘Once I had a friend, a man of honour who would have died before he let his blood be polluted. Now a nameless monster with his face stands before me.’ He raised his blade. ‘I should have killed you while I had the chance,’ he snarled, and attacked me.

   “We fought while the battle raged on around us. One by one, I saw those of the Circle fall. The Lightwoods dropped their weapons and fled; Hodge was already gone. Most of them died.

   “And then I saw Jocelyn racing up the stairs towards me – Valentine and I fought now on the dais – and she was afraid. She shouted for Valentine to stop, that I was his brother. It enraged him. He seized her and dragged her in front of him, put his dagger to her throat. I would not risk hurting her: I threw down my blade.

   “He knew then, I think. That I loved her, that I always had. Maybe he had heard the rumours that I was still alive; maybe he even knew about my visits to her. I don’t know. ‘You will both regret what you have done,’ he hissed, ‘all the rest of your lives.’

   “He tore the locket from Jocelyn’s throat and hurled it at me. The silver burned me, and I yelled and fell back. He vanished instantly, disappearing into the chaos and dragging Jocelyn with him. I tried to follow but he was too fast, cutting a path through the thick of the crowd, heedless of whether he cut down foe or friend. He walked over the dead.

   “I made it outside, burned and bleeding. The moon had risen; the Hall was burning. The whole world seemed to be fire. People were fleeing into the night.

   “I found Jocelyn by the banks of the river. Valentine had abandoned her there, and she was terrified for her children, desperate to get home. We cut a horse free from the trappings of a forgotten carriage and she hurtled away into the night, with me right behind her in wolf form.

   “The horse was better-rested than I. Jocelyn made it to the manor first.

   “I knew something was terribly wrong before we reached it. There should be no fire here, and yet the same thick smell as the burning Hall choked the air around the Fairchild land – and something else, something sweet and rotting. The stink of demon magic. I raced up the long drive as quickly as I could, the path like a silver river under my feet, leading to...to ruins.”

   Luke took a deep breath, steadying himself. “The manor house had been reduced to ashes. Destroyed by demon fire. Nothing else could burn hot enough to reduce an ancient Shadowhunter bastion to dust blowing across the face of the moon. There was nothing left – only bits of a window, a leaning chimney, the lines of the foundations like the charred bones of a broken skeleton. Priceless books, ancient tapestries; all of it was gone.

   “And Jocelyn’s family with it.

   “She wasn’t beside the house. I tracked her by scent away from the remains, halfway between what was left of the house and the lake that edged the Fairchild property. There was a small hill where we all used to picnic when we were children, and she was there, kneeling next to the body of her father. She was staring down at you in her arms. The blanket you were wrapped in was charred black at the very edge, and you were screaming. I had never heard you do that before.

   “Her voice shook as she told me what her father had told her. That Valentine had come home in a rage, shouting, cursing them all. He set the house ablaze and went for the children, but your grandparents fought him. Your grandfather snatched you up, and your grandmother – who was always the better Shadowhunter – tried to hold Valentine off. He killed her, and would have killed your grandfather if he hadn’t escaped through a window. But he was burned, and cut himself badly on the glass. He was alive when your mother reached him, but he was no longer.

   “ _You will both regret what you have done_ , Valentine said. And I did. Better that the Accords had gone unsigned than your brothers and grandparents died for Valentine’s insane pride.

   “Jocelyn and I fled to Paris. There were bones in the ashes; Jocelyn insisted that we let the Clave believe that she had died in the fire as well. After that she didn’t speak for a week. You barely stopped crying to sleep. We had no money, and pretending to be dead meant that Jocelyn couldn’t go to the Institute in Paris for help.

   “I tried to reason with her, but she was determined. You know how she is when she gets like that. Nothing would sway her. She would raise you far, far away from all whispers of Clave and Covenant, she declared. Far away from the taint that had ruined her husband, her marriage, and Jonathan; the taint that had killed Janim and her parents. She had a small case of things she had taken from her parents’ house. Some of it was jewellery. She sold an amulet at a flea market at Clignancourt and bought a plane ticket, refusing to tell me where she was going. As far away from Idris as it was possible to get was what she told me.

   “I knew that leaving her old life behind meant leaving me as well, but none of my arguments convinced her. I think that if not for you she would have killed herself, and remembering how she had been with Jonathan I had another reason to try and stay by her side. But she wouldn’t let me. And when she bid me goodbye at the airport, she pulled aside the shoulder of her shirt and told me ‘Valentine is not dead.’

   “Death is one of the few things that can break a _parastathentes_ bond. But the Mark of her bond with Valentine was still dark and perfect.

   “The sight of it chilled me. It stayed with me even after she was gone, a constant presence in my mind. I was a poor leader for my pack in the weeks after Jocelyn left – distracted, my thoughts always turned to her, to Valentine’s continued existence. How could you and Jocelyn be safe if he still lived?

   “When the Hall of the Angel had been scrubbed clean of blood, I went to sign the Accords for the wolves. I saw the Lightwoods there; they were astonished that I had survived. They themselves were two of the only four Circle members to have survived the massacre: Michael Wayland, racked with grief over the loss of his wife, had retreated to the Wayland country estate with his young son, and Hodge and the Lightwoods were to be exiled. They were leaving for New York the moment the Accords were signed, to run the Institute there. Hodge had been cursed to never leave the Institute’s grounds, or die instantly; the Lightwoods were an old family, with connections, and they had only the lighter sentence of exile to bear.

   “I loathed them for that. Michael had not been there that night, but Maryse and Robert had both fought, had killed Downworlders and true Shadowhunters. They should have been executed for it, and Hodge with them.

   “It was the final straw. I understood what Jocelyn had meant about the corruption of the Clave, and I could not bear to be near it any longer. I gave up my pack to another and sought her out, determined to keep her safe from the continued threat of Valentine. I wanted to watch you grow up. I wanted to be near her.

   “It took me years to find her, though.” Luke smiled, a little grimly, and sighed. “I won’t go into all the places I visited, everywhere I looked for some glimpse of her. She had vanished completely, without leaving even whispers in her wake. In the end it was only chance – or maybe some glimmer of our long-lost _agela_ bond – that made me glance at a gallery’s window as I passed it in New York, that guided my eyes to the painting in the corner. It was a landscape that I recognised instantly: the view as seen from her family’s manor, the rolling green lawns leading down to the lake. I banged on the door of the gallery, but it was closed and locked. When I returned to the painting, I searched out the signature, and found it. It was the first time I had seen her new name: Jocelyn Fray.

   “By that evening, I had found her. I walked up the grimy half-lit stairs with my heart in my throat, and when she opened the door I could hardly speak. You were standing at the top of the stairs inside, a small boy with curling brown hair and quick, inquisitive eyes.

   “The rest... The rest you know.”

*

   Simon said nothing. He let the silence spin out from his heart like spider-silk, threads and ribbons of silver filling up the space behind his eyes. His mouth. His lungs.

   Weight for weight, spider-silk was five times stronger than steel. Simon’s heart wove a rope of it, wrist-thick, and caught his thoughts in the web he made from it. Keeping them to himself.

   “Simon?” Luke, anxiously. “Please say something.”

   “What do you want me to say?” Simon asked tonelessly. “I don’t care that you and mom lied to me. She wanted to keep me safe, and since I’m starting to lose count of how many times I’ve nearly died this week, she was right and it would be stupid to be mad about it. What else? You’re a werewolf? I don’t care. Mom used to be married to Valentine? I already knew that.”

   _I had brothers._ It was a sharp, shining knife sliding between the strands of his web and into his heart. _I had two brothers._ And his mom had hated one of them. Why? He tried to focus on that, on that strange question, to force out of his mind the thought of flames, ashes, twin boys screaming as they burned.

 _‘He set a great fire and burned himself to death, along with his wife and children.’_ Hodge, telling him Valentine’s story. That was what Simon had forgotten, and almost remembered.

   _His wife **and** **children**._

   “And he is your father,” Luke said cautiously.

   “I knew that too,” Simon said absently, his chest tight. _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._ He didn’t know what for – thought of Jace asking _why do mundanes always apologise for things that aren’t their fault?_ – but he _was_ , he was so, so heart-breakingly sorry. He felt sickly guilty for surviving when they hadn’t. As if he could have done anything to save them, when he was a baby too young to walk.

   “You did?” Shock. “How?”

   “I _remember_ ,” Simon snapped, the pain and loss a whetstone, sharpening his edges to gleaming brittle points. “The Silent Brothers opened up the memory when I visited the Silent City. A guy with silver hair whirling me around when I was little. When he walked through the Portal to see Hodge I recognised him. And it wasn’t that hard to work out that my mom’s husband was probably my da – my father.” He would not call Valentine dad. He would not call the man who’d murdered Simon’s brothers _dad_.

   He wondered where his mom had gotten the photo of the man on their mantelpiece. Someone dead, probably, someone Simon couldn’t run into accidentally on the street. Maybe it had been a commission for a painting: someone had given Jocelyn a photo to work from, and she’d kept it. That seemed like the simplest explanation.

   He could have asked Luke. But for all the emotion in Luke’s story, Simon couldn’t unhear the way he’d said _He wasn’t worth the risk._

   Jace had gone up against a whole coven of vampires for Clary, for someone he’d only met once. Luke had a whole pack of werewolves standing behind him. Why hadn’t he done the same?

   “You visited – maybe you should tell me your story too,” Luke said. “It sounds like you’ve had an exciting few days.”

   Simon bit back a snarl, restless and frustrated. He didn’t want to be here swapping memories. He wanted to be out, _gone_ , looking for Jace. But it was usually a good idea to have everyone on the same page of the story, so he obeyed the implied order, giving Luke the quickest possible rundown of the events since meeting Jace at Pandemonium, nothing but the bare bones of what had happened. He told Luke how Clary had overheard his conversation with Valentine’s supporters, but did not explain Simiel; about Jace he said only “We hooked up,” hating the casual irreverence of the euphemism, the clumsy refusal of everything he felt to be condensed into words. Hating more the way Luke’s eyebrows shot up, and the flicker of distaste that was there and then gone in his eyes.

   It bit as deeply as a werewolf bite.

   “We’ll deal with that later,” was all Luke said, and listened intently to Simon describe, brusquely, the Silent City and the dream that had revealed the location of the Cup. When Simon reached the battle with Abbadon, Luke gave him a surprised, confused look.

   “It hurt when Abbadon touched you?”

   “Well, yeah.” Simon frowned at him. “Shouldn’t it’ve? The thing was a Greater Demon.”

   Luke shook his head slowly. “Demons – except for a few special types – don’t hurt you just by touching you, Simon. They have claws and teeth for that, strength and speed. If they could fell us with a touch as well, the world would have been overrun long ago.”

   Simon felt the echo of that horrific agony shiver over his heart-strings, plucking. “I promise you, I wasn’t imagining it.” His voice was hoarse.

   “No, I’m not saying that... It’s just strange. And worrying.” Luke shook his head. “Go on.”

   Everyone should be on the same page, when you were facing bad guys together. And yet, Simon played down his injuries, saying he’d only been unconscious, not dead. He kept the dream to himself. Likewise the rune on his arm, and the Enochian that had spilled out of his lips to curse Hodge. He said that the bindings had simply faded, saying nothing of the strange, earth-shaking power that had swept out of him to destroy Hodge’s Marks. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell Luke – maybe because of that flicker of disgust, maybe because he had walked away and left Alec to die.

   Maybe because he’d been right not to trust Hodge. And now it seemed he didn’t know Luke either, and he wasn’t going to risk trusting a stranger again.

   Luke held out his hands and took Simon’s wrists; Simon restrained his flinch to a twitch, and let him. Luke’s thumbs brushed over Simon’s skin, and his expression darkened.

   “What?” Simon drew his hands back, and saw what Luke had already spotted.

   Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Luke nodded, solemn and tired and angry. “I’m sorry, Simon.”

   Simon stared at his wrists, struggling to come to terms with what he was looking at. Scars. Both his wrists were circled with glossy white scars, thick bracelets that curved and twisted like silver flames set into his skin. Air hissed through his teeth, each breath sharp and unexpectedly painful.

   “What...?”

   Luke sighed. “Binding cuffs. They’re drawn with a stele and burn when the prisoner’s wrists aren’t held together, keeping them bound. The Clave uses them on criminals.”

   “Criminals,” Simon echoed. He fought to keep his voice even. “They won’t come off, will they?”

   The scars, he meant. Luke must have understood that, because he shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he repeated quietly.

   Simon curled his fingers into fists. Timidly, Simiel dimmed, casting the scars into shadow. But making them invisible didn’t magic them away, and the knowledge of them was a hot stone in Simon’s throat. _Scars_. Not a tattoo that could be covered with another, or lasered off. Scars, thick and ugly and a permanent reminder of being too weak to save the person he –

   The person he –

   _Jace._

   “He marked me.” Simon felt far away from the words coming out of his mouth: they echoed in his head as if from a distance. “Hodge. He – ” It made him sick. Permanent. _Scarred_. Branded like an animal. He knew, logically, that it was a relatively minor thing, that he already had rune scars from the _iratzes_ and the glamour rune Jace had used on him, but – but those he’d needed, or agreed to. This was different. This was – these were thick and ugly, these had been used to chain him. He had cried and screamed and broken while they burned on his wrists, _because_ they burned on his wrists. Because of these, Valentine had Jace, and now they would _never go away_. He would wear the mark of them for the rest of his life.

   It felt like a violation.

   Remembering, he reached up and touched the bandage on his cheek. “Is this going to scar too?”

   _Simon, I can see_ bone.

   “Probably,” Luke said tiredly. “I did what I could, but I’ve never been a healer. I don’t know the kind of runes that would heal you without leaving a scar.” He smiled a little. “Werewolves don’t have much use for runes.”

   “Isabelle said something about that. You can’t use runes, right?” Simon asked distantly. Another mark. Another scar.

   “More or less. You can’t draw a Mark on a Downworlder, but Downworlders can draw Marks.” At Simon’s startled glance, Luke shrugged. “Whatever power it is that fuels runes, it’s something we all have. Maybe even mundanes. We just can’t all bear it on our skin.”

   “I’m learning so much today.” The words snapped free scathingly, but Simon didn’t have it in him to apologise. Not now. “But like I said: Valentine has Jace. And mom. And now the Cup. So how about we leave any more revelations until _after_ we track them down and get them back?”

   _Until after I RIP HIM APART for laying a hand on Jace – for killing my brothers – for kidnapping mom – !_

   “The problem is that we don’t know where Valentine is,” Luke said.

   “You can’t follow one of his spy people back to base?” Simon resisted the urge to check his ankles, to see if the bindings there had scarred too. He was sure he already knew the answer. “Or track him somehow?”

   Luke spread his hands. “If we had something that belonged to him, or a runecaster to draw a scrying _telesma_. But we have neither.”

   _So what good are you?_ Simon nearly snarled. Simiel flashed warningly on his arm; with effort, Simon controlled himself, unsure whether his blade meant to threaten Luke or chide Simon’s temper, but taking it as the latter.

   _Think,_ he told himself, breathing deeply and trying to grab hold of that elusive sense of calm. _If this were a WoW campaign – if this were a book – what would Hermione do?_

   “I drew mom’s _telesma_ ,” he told Luke. “If you can draw the runes for the scrying _telesma_ , maybe I can put them together – ”

   But Luke was already shaking his head. “Simon, drawing a _telesma_ doesn’t make you a runecaster. You’ve never _created_ a _telesma_ – you could end up killing yourself – ”

   “ – And,” Simon said loudly, speaking over him, “I have this.”

   He pulled the bloody Wayland ring from his pocket and held it out in the palm of his hand. “It’s Jace’s,” he said to Luke’s sudden stillness. “Do you think we can track him with this?”

   Gingerly, Luke picked up the heavy silver ring. “I didn’t think she’d kept this,” he murmured, turning it over in his hand, and Simon was too busy focussing on not snatching it back from him to wonder who Luke meant. “But yes.” Something like triumph wound through his voice, fierce and almost excited. “Yes, I think this will work.”

*

   Luke went upstairs to talk to his wolves while Simon ate. The tray of food had cooled, but since Simon’s mind was whirling too fast to taste any of it he didn’t care. He ate the way a real Shadowhunter would have sharpened their blades, because his body was a weapon and he would need it. Whatever power he had inside him needed fuel – that was a brute fact, a law of physics: you couldn’t get something from nothing.

   So he ate. And thought, carding through what Luke had told him for meaning and implications. Forcing himself, mercilessly, to remember Luke’s voice saying _he wasn’t worth the risk_. Because he could not, for one second, let himself believe that he was here with his quasi-father. The man upstairs was not the one he knew, not the bookshop owner Simon had always known and loved. This Luke was a trained warrior, an alpha werewolf, and as much as it hurt his heart Simon knew he had to be on his guard.

   _Brothers. I had_ brothers _._ At some point he’d gotten the idea that Jonathan Christopher was his father’s name, but instead – It hurt so much to imagine, but at the same time, it was a safe pain, a safe loss. Janim and Jonathan were gone, beyond rescue. Worrying about Jace was so much worse because Simon might have a chance to save him, but he didn’t _know._ Valentine could be torturing him, punishing the son for the father’s betrayal, punishing the dead Michael for leaving the Circle. Or Jace could already be dead.

   They hadn’t had two months to spare for the _harpagmos_ , but Simon wished he and Jace were _parastathentes_. At least then he would have known if Jace was –

   _Two hours. I’ve been here two hours, listening to a fucking history lesson while Jace – while Valentine –_

   It was so hard to breathe.

   “Simon?”

   Clary hesitated in the doorway. For a moment Simon could only stare at her, confused as to how he hadn’t heard her coming. Had he really been that lost in his thoughts?

   _When those thoughts are of your_ erastes _dying? Yes._

   “Hey.” Simon’s mind blanked then. It was actually a relief. “Did – did you eat?”

   Clary nodded, coming in and sitting on the edge of the bed. “It’s an abandoned police station, upstairs,” she told him. “I guess we should have figured that out, what with the cell.” She gestured at the bars. “But the pack pretends to be a Chinese take-out place sometimes. One of the guys, Ben? He makes the pork buns. Aren’t they delicious?”

   Simon glanced down at his tray. Sure enough, it was typical-looking Chinese food. If not for the setting, it was like any one of a hundred meals Luke had brought to Jocelyn’s kitchen when she was too tired to cook.

   _The Jade Dog Restaurant._ He’d never blinked at the name on the take-out boxes before, but now it made him smile wryly. _Cute._

   “It’s kind of sad, actually,” Clary said quietly. She was staring at the bars. “All of them upstairs. This place is a dump, but they’re all here instead of – I don’t know, somewhere else. Somewhere _better_.” She paused for a moment. “Some of the kids look like they’re homeless.”

   “Maybe they are,” Simon answered, his voice just as low. “I don’t think the Downworld is a very good place to be. And the Shadowhunters don’t make it any easier.” With their casual contempt. What was it that Izzy had said? _‘You sleep with them, but you don’t bring them home to meet the parents.’_

   “It doesn’t look like it, does it?” Clary sighed and turned to him. “So... What did you and Luke talk about?”

   Simon summarised his and Luke’s conversation tonelessly while he picked at the rest of his food. He edited some – he didn’t mention Luke’s reaction when Simon had outed himself – but most of it, he told her. Clary listened silently – if she felt the urge to gasp or drop her jaw in shock, she suppressed it, for which he was grateful. It was hard enough to distil the poison into something that wouldn’t burn his tongue without a dramatic audience to make it harder.

   “Simon...” She said softly when he was finished. “I’m really sorry.”

   “Yeah. Me too,” he said quietly. Brothers. Grandparents he would never know. Not because they’d died of old age, or even illness or accident, but because his father – no, call him what he was, a sperm donor and nothing more – because Valentine had murdered them. Simon took a deep breath. “The whole thing just keeps getting more and more fucked up, doesn’t it?”

   Without speaking, Clary got up from the bed and walked over to him. Resting her cheek on his shoulder, she stood behind his chair and hugged him tightly.

   It almost made him come undone. He reached up and grasped her wrist, squeezing hard, needing to just – needing to hold her and be held. Needing to not feel so alone with this, this tangled, monstrous knot of history and horror that just kept growing and growing. It was like acid rain, eating away at him piece by piece – a storm of poison that just didn’t _stop._ Every time he thought it could get no worse the universe proved him wrong, every time he climbed back up he was back-handed down. His mom kidnapped, the Ravener, discovering he wasn’t human, the Forsaken and the overhanging threat of the Clave, the first fight with Alec, and the second; the grim horror of the Silent City, his memories lost forever, Abbadon, Alec nearly dying and maybe dead, Hodge’s betrayal and _Jace_ and the scars on his wrists and the vicious, terrifying thing inside him and just, fucking, _everything_.

   He let his eyes burn for a moment; let his chest go tight and painful. Let himself hold Clary and take the comfort she offered, let the touch of skin on skin anchor him in his body, in reality. A spider-silk rope, keeping him from being torn away by the storm in his head.

   And spider-silk was stronger than steel.

   “I love you so much,” he whispered. “I know you don’t love me back, and that’s okay. That’s fine. But I don’t think I’m ever going to stop loving you.”

   Slowly, Clary shifted. She pulled away, and for a second Simon thought he’d broken the moment, made things awkward for them both.

   But then she punched his shoulder, _hard_. “Who said I don’t love you, you stupid idiot?” she asked thickly, and he heard tears shaking in her voice. She hugged him again before he could turn to look at her, squeezing him so tightly he almost couldn’t breathe. “I do love you. I don’t want to be your girlfriend, but I’m always going to be your friend, you – you damn _boy!_ ” It was not the first time she’d used ‘boy’ as an insult, and it still made Simon grin through the thickness in his throat. “And we are both going to survive this, because I will never forgive you if you don’t and I am too awesome not to. Capisce?”

   “Yes, ma’am!” Simon saluted, fingers to his temple, and heard Clary’s watery laugh behind him.

   “You’re such a dork,” she said fondly. She leaned her forehead against his temple. “I do love you,” she whispered. “Don’t ever doubt it.”

   He squeezed her fingers. “I won’t,” he whispered back. A promise. _She’s my_ parabatai, he thought, and felt the rightness of it.

   Slipped the hand not holding Clary’s into his coat pocket, and squeezed his cuff. _And Jace is my_ erastes, another, darker voice whispered. One with sharp teeth and a golden tongue. _Jace is MINE, and you cannot have him, Valentine. You can’t have him, or mom, or_ anybody else _, not EVER AGAIN!_

   “Good.” Clary let him go and straightened up. “Now why don’t we go upstairs and find Luke?”

*

   Clary had not been exaggerating: the police station, for all that it was currently serving as some kind of werewolf club house, was a mess. The old storage cupboard were pitted with the work of termites, more than one door rotting or hanging off its hinges; the plastic tiles were grimy, the wallpaper marked with damp and peeling. And yet the pack of people – no pun intended, _really_ – filled the dilapidated space comfortably, perfectly at ease. Men and women and teenagers, all of them talking or reading or playing old board games on the dirty floor – or pretending to, rather, because the moment he stepped into the room Simon could feel everyone’s attention lasered in on him. Nobody went quiet, and he didn’t catch anyone staring outright, but he felt their focus as a prickling on the back of his neck.

   Werewolves. _Predators_ , his lizard brain insisted, but that was stupid. You shouldn’t judge based on appearances but Luke’s pack looked, and _felt_ , a hell of a lot more human than the vampires at the Dumort had. Vampires didn’t make mu shu pork to die for, for a start.

   And yet Simiel flickered with quiet fire in its setting.

   They walked past a girl working on an old laptop and found Luke deep in discussion with Alaric and a short woman with blond hair, all of them standing around a wooden box set on the table next to them. Alaric coughed into his fist meaningfully at their approach, and Luke turned and saw them.

   “Ah. Simon, Clary, this is Gretel, my second in command.” Luke gestured to the woman, who nodded. “Gretel, Simon and Clary.”

   “Hi,” Clary smiled.

   Gretel’s lips curved up minutely. “Hello.”

   “We were just discussing the possibilities,” Luke said.

   “For tracking Valentine?” Simon asked, aware that everyone in the building could probably hear them. He would be very surprised if werewolves didn’t have supernatural hearing. “Let me know if you’ve thought of something besides the scrying _telesma_.”

   Luke frowned unhappily. “We haven’t,” he admitted reluctantly. “But I still think it’s too dangerous.”

   “It’s a moot point if we don’t have a stele,” Simon pointed out.

   “Now that is one thing which is not a problem.” Luke placed his hand on the box. “Your mother’s things, from her Shadowhunter days. She asked me to keep them here, to make sure you wouldn’t accidentally stumble on them.”

   Luke flicked the catch and lifted the hinged lid. The box was shaped like a typical treasure chest – rectangular with a curved lid, bound with slender ribbons of steel or silver. But it was small, about twice as long as Simon’s hand, and made of some very pale wood. Not that Simon was an expert in woodworking or anything, but he didn’t think the chest had been carved from any tree he’d ever seen.

   It held jewellery. Tangled together like snakes of precious metal and pearls was a whole nest of necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, glittering and sparkling even in the unappreciative florescent lighting, left over from the building’s police station days. Gold, silver, diamonds, rubies – it was a dragon’s hoard of treasure. A Pocket Dragon, maybe, but still!

   “The Morgenstern jewels,” Luke said quietly. “Jocelyn kept them at her parents’ house because she didn’t like wearing them. The Fairchild ones were mostly lost in the fire.” His expression was unreadable behind his glasses. “She’s been selling pieces of it ever since she left Idris.”

   “There used to be _more?_ ” Clary gasped. Her eyes were very wide.

   “Mm.” Luke reached into the box. He lifted away the box’s top shelf and set it aside on the table. “But this is what you’re looking for, I think.”

   Simon leaned in to look, and felt his breath catch. There on red velvet, far more beautiful and precious than the Morgenstern jewels, was a slender wand of flawless crystal. Simiel instantly brightened in some kind of recognition, and without thinking Simon reached out and picked up his mother’s stele.

   It hummed against his fingertips, an electric whisper like the rustling of wings, a sound he heard in his bones.

   “Jace’s didn’t look like this.” Luke shot him a sharp glance at the mention of his boyfriend, but Simon ignored him. Jace’s stele was simple cut crystal, plain and unadorned. This one, a little longer than Simon’s favourite pen, was engraved, covered in evocative spirals and swirls that made Simon think of wind and waves.

   “Then he’s not 18 yet. Shadowhunters receive their adult steles when they graduate from their training. Each one is unique – Jocelyn was very proud of hers.” 

   It was probably even more important to her than to other Shadowhunters, Simon realised, if his mom wasn’t just a Shadowhunter, but a runecaster too. “What happened to yours?” Simon asked. “Do you still have it?”

   “No.” Luke didn’t elaborate.

   There were other things in the box, Simon noticed, twirling the stele absently between his fingers. A photograph. A velvet ring box. Four silvery dowels that he recognised as sheathed seraph blades. A leather cuff.

   The sight of it all hurt. Was this what a Shadowhunter’s life could be whittled down to? Weapons, a picture, a stele, and two pieces of jewellery. This was all that had had meaning to his mom, when she left her life as a Nephilim?

   He picked up the ring box and opened it.

   “The Fairchild family ring,” Luke said softly, watching Simon pull out the heavy silver ring. “She took it off in Paris. I’ve never seen her wear it since.”

   Simon turned the ring over in the light. The decoration was more detailed than on Jace’s ring; on this one a calligraphic _F_ was surrounded by an elegantly engraved wreath of rose vines. They were incredibly detailed – Simon could make out every petal, and every sharp thorn. A pair of graceful fairy wings framed the _F_ without quite touching it, overlapping the flowers.

   “Can I wear it?” Simon heard himself ask, surprising himself.

   And Luke too, from the expression that flashed across his face. “Of course,” he said after a beat. “I – you’re a Fairchild. You have every right to wear it, if that’s what you want.”

   Simon had no idea what had prompted him to ask such a thing, but he adjusted his hold on the stele and pushed the Fairchild ring over the middle finger of his right hand. For a moment he thought it would be too small – _of course it is, it’s mom’s ring, her fingers are smaller than mine_.

   But then the silver _rippled_ , and abruptly it slid into place, a perfect fit.

   Simon felt his eyes go wide.

   “A Fairchild ring will always fit a Fairchild,” Luke said simply when Simon glanced at him. “And won’t fit anyone else. It’s a small magic that goes into the metal, when it’s being forged.”

   “By dwarves?” Simon murmured. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Luke had nodded his head in agreement, but he didn’t.

   “And this?” Simon asked, reaching into the chest again. But the moment he turned the leather bracelet over, he didn’t need Luke to answer.

   It was an _armask_ _ō_ cuff. Simon had to resist the urge to take out his own and compare the two, but even without looking, he knew they were the same thing. Both were made from the same soft black leather, and both featured the wire clasp for a seraph blade in pride of place, the golden wire elegant enough for jewellery. But instead of the silver and crystal stars on the one Jace had given Simon, the clasp on the Fairchild cuff was surrounded with rose vines of silver wire, shining and strong as chains. They wove a circle around the clasp, the leaves and thorns picked out in emerald thread, the blossoms in bloody crimson. No fairytale roses, these – unless the tale was Sleeping Beauty, with a hundred years’ worth of princes impaled and dead on the briars; they were powerful, dangerous, a crest any Shadowhunter would be proud to wear on their arm.

   Luke was talking – explaining what it was, probably – but Simon wasn’t listening. The thin lines of glass or crystal set into the leather traced out the fairy wings from the Fairchild ring and shone, and Simon wondered what they would look like on Jace’s wrist.

   Would he ever get to find out?

   He put the cuff back carefully, without asking Luke if his mother had ever given it to anyone – without asking if Valentine had been the last one to wear it – and picked up the photo instead.

   It was a group of ten or so people, and immediately Simon recognised Valentine standing in the middle. A younger Valentine, his face softer, brighter. He was smiling and looked like he meant it, his arm around a beaming Jocelyn.

   _She really did love him._ Simon hadn’t quite believed it until now, seeing her happiness shining out of the photo at him. _How could she?_

   Clary peeked over Simon’s shoulder. “Who are they?”

   “The Circle,” Simon said softly, before Luke could answer. “Look, there’s Hodge – ” He tapped the man’s face with the point of the stele. “And my mom. Valentine.”

   Clary tilted her head. “Bad guys aren’t supposed to be hot,” she said disapprovingly.

   Nobody laughed.

   “And you, Luke.” On Valentine’s other side: standing tall and straight and proud, grinning at the camera as if he couldn’t believe his luck. “I’m right, aren’t I? This is the Circle.”

   “The core of us, yes.” Luke’s voice was subdued. “That was taken right after graduation. See – this is your Jace’s father, Simon.” He pointed. “Michael Wayland.”

   “He doesn’t look anything like Jace,” Clary murmured, and Simon had to agree. Michael had dark brown hair that came close to curling, and his features were heavier than Jace’s gracefully chiselled ones. Where Jace was whipcord lean and lithe, his father was hard with muscle. _Didn’t Jace say his fighting style was based off his speed? No way is this guy as fast. But he’s probably five times as strong..._ It wasn’t that Michael was at all ugly, with his bright blue eyes, but Simon struggled to see how someone like Jace could have come from him.

   It was much easier to spot the Lightwoods. Alec and Izzy both carried hints of their parents in their faces – and the black-haired couple standing together was something of a giveaway. They were both elegantly aristocratic, regal, with the same china-doll beauty as their children. But it was a shock to realise that they both looked colder and crueller than the Valentine beside them. A shock to think that anyone could ever be worse than Simon’s father, even a teenage version of him.

   Shadowhunters, all of them. _And_ _I’m not going to be one of them._ He’d told Jace that, and he’d meant it – meant it still. After this – after he had Jace back – Simon would cut off the Shadow World. He and Jace would work it out somehow, figure out a way to be together without the demons and the vampires – but Simon was not stepping any further away from the world he knew. The shadows hid a fucked-up nightmare, and the only part of it he wanted was his _erastes_.

   He couldn’t ever imagine wanting more than that.

   “All right.” Simon put the photo back and brandished the stele, affecting a casual air that he hoped werewolf senses couldn’t pierce. “Enough already. Show me the runes for the _telesma_.”

*

   Isabelle had said that the scrying _telesma_ was made up of _clairvoyance, insight, precision_ and _mnemosyne._ Now Luke drew them for Simon on a piece of hastily appropriated notepaper with a thick black marker.

   “Usually we could just use a tracking rune on the ring,” he explained, his hand moving smoothly through the curves and twists of the Marks. “But we would have to follow the trail to its end to find out where he was. The _telesma_ should give you the location directly, and we can plan an attack from there.” He straightened up and put the pen aside. “Are you still sure you want to do this?”

   “Yep,” Simon said lightly. “Now move. You’re in my light.”

   He sat down on the rickety chair someone had found for him, shutting the rest of them out. Clary, Luke, Alaric, Gretel, the handful of other werewolves who had come to see what he was up to – he ignored them all, curling his left hand tightly around Jace’s ring, feeling the hard edges of the W bite into his palm.

   _Jace_.

   He examined the runes, stark against the white paper. For all his brave declarations to Luke, Simon wasn’t at all sure how to do this. The other _telesma_ had been given to him – as Luke said, Simon hadn’t had to create it. And yet –

   _I did something, when I broke out of Hodge’s cage._ He wasn’t even sure he’d been himself – it had been his other-self, colder and harder and full of blinding rage, that had tapped the thing inside them and channelled it. The Simon who lashed out whenever he went into a battle-trance, dangerous and angry.

   _But if I did that, can’t I do this?_

   _Clairvoyance. Insight. Precision. Mnemosyne._ Simon breathed in slowly, deeply, and tried to clear his mind, to relax. _Clairvoyance. Insight. Precision. Mnemosyne. Clairvoyance. Insight. Precision. Mnemosyne. Clairvoyance. Insight. Precision. Mnemosyne –_

   Memory. _Mnemosyne_ meant _memory_. He heard it, not a voice but a piece of music – a soft, winding stream of silver, a ribbon of a wordless song; the sound of summer rainfall against a rooftop and a xylophone of finger bones, a humming that tugged at his chest, weaving in and out of his ribcage and very faintly, very far away, his mother’s voice singing a lullaby. Too faint and too far to make out the words, but the tune, the song –

   A _telesma_ was just a choir, Simon thought, a handful of voices singing together. The runes weren’t ingredients – they were a band, four instruments braiding their sound into a new piece of music, and it was just like, _just like_ writing a song. _A song about finding things_ , _YES_ , he understood the theory of it now –

   He held the shape of the runes’ music in his mind the way he held the awareness of Lint’s instruments when he was writing a new song, balancing the power and effect of each to create what he wanted. _Clairvoyance_ ’s sharp, painful sweetness, a vicious sugar-coated poison that trembled, breathless, a melody that was always on the peak of breaking into something glorious; _insight_ a crystalline flash of sound, silvery bells and a loud cymbal-cry; _precision_ was a rich Cello rope, a flurry of notes like a rigidly controlled whirlwind, one that made Simon want to _move_ , run and leap and spin and spin in circles until he fell –

   But he had a purpose, and he held to it, writing the song in his mind quickly, before the sounds could all get away from him. Not every instrument could play at the forefront for every bar of every verse of a song, and he balanced the runes the same way, interweaving them with each other, layering them over each other like plates of _adamas_ armour, folding them like the steel edge of a sword, and the song’s name was _hunt_ , was _find._

   His mother’s stele was in his other hand. Closing his eyes, Simon drew, and it was so _familiar_. It could have been any song, it could have been his pen instead of a stele, his notebook instead of scrap paper, his room instead of this old police station. His fingers drew curlicues instead of scribbling down words and notes but it was _exactly the same_ , it was capturing the music on paper, it was writing the song, the one that built like dawn in his head and chest and throat until it broke, until it burst out of him in a blinding tragedy of gold and crimson and he was sitting still and silent but he was also singing, singing so loudly in a place where no one could hear him.

   _Hunt. FIND._

   Singing. Until the song came to a close, not trailing away but ending as sharply as the slam of a door, and Simon opened his eyes.

   “That’s it.” His voice was scratchy; he cleared his throat and lowered the stele. “That’s the _telesma_.”

   Luke picked up the paper and inspected it. Simon wondered what for – he’d already said he didn’t know what the _telesma_ should look like. How would Luke know if he’d gotten it right?

   “You’re sure?” the alpha asked finally.

   “ _Yes_ , Luke.” _‘If you draw a rune incorrectly, it just won’t work, but a bad_ telesma _can kill you,’_ he remembered Jace saying. Jesus in a tutu, was that only last night? It felt like it had been years ago. But Simon was sure. He could feel the song humming through him still, curling like smoke in the back of his mind, itchy and impatient. His fingers twitched, longing to play it – to write it on his skin and fire it like an arrow to his _erastes_. And it had been so _long_ , hours and hours – time Jace might not have to waste.

   _You said you wouldn’t risk your life for him,_ a quiet voice reminded Simon.

   Simon shoved it away. _I already did._ With the Forsaken, with Abbadon – even with Alec, really; Simon hadn’t been sure Alec wouldn’t attack him again, when they’d talked outside the kitchen. In comparison this was nothing – he didn’t have to depend on weapon-skills he didn’t have: this came from inside him. This was a certainty written into his blood, vibrating along his heartstrings. Playing his veins like the strands of a harp.

   _I’m sure._

   “Valentine has _mom_ , Luke,” Simon said quietly, and a pained expression flickered across Luke’s face. Without another word, he gave the paper back to Simon.

   Simon took it, even as his cold self whispered _Alec wasn’t worth the risk, but he’ll put your life in danger for your mother._

   He shrugged it off, his eyes scanning the _telesma_ instead. Jocelyn’s _telesma_ had taken the shape of an uneven circle, but this one was a crooked cross, the four runes roughly circling a central point at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 points on a clock. But the arms of the cross were unequal, _clairvoyance_ closer to the centre than the others, _precision_ leaning more to seven o’ clock than six.It looked careless, but he knew that the distance between each one was precise, exactly right and necessary, the same way that each word and breath and note had to be perfect in a song, or the dissonance would roar.

   “Will it work on the paper, do you think?” he asked. “Or should I put it on my arm?” More scars. But this was different. Worth it.

    _Jace._

   “It would be safer if you used the paper,” Luke said cautiously. “But...”

   “But.” Simon put everything down – the paper and stele and Jace’s ring – and without letting himself hesitate shrugged out of his coat. Clary took it, and watched silently as Simon unzipped his right vambrace and set it carefully on the table. A faint sparkle of light ran through Simiel, there and gone, before the blade went quiescent. “Not as powerful? Not as likely to work?”

   Luke sighed. “Yes.”

   “Well then.” Simon pushed the bloody ring onto the middle finger of his left hand and curled his fingers around it. He picked up the stele and placed the cool, sharp tip against his forearm. “Ready or not.”

   “Simon – ”

   He ignored Luke’s last-minute protest, and drew.

   The stele was not a knife. It didn’t sink into his flesh and cut, but it felt as if it did – it felt as though he were not drawing but carving the Marks into his arm with a blade of flame, and Simon hated pain, had always been a coward when it came to physical violence and any situation in which he might get hurt. But he’d forgotten that lately, in the rush of demons and seraph blades and golden, searing kisses, and he didn’t remember it now as his eyes fell closed, breathless with the pain singing soprano through his veins. It hurt, it hurt and hurt and seared his mind clean with its perfect whiteness, left him blank and empty of everything but the bite of briar-rose thorns twisting into and through his skin, blossoming into velvet explosions of crimson and black behind his eyes. _Sweet_ was the wrong word, but it was a chisel slicing through the stone shell of him and it let him breathe again, breathless and breathing and bleeding, tiny droplets of blood falling from the point of the stele like the petals of a rose.

   “Stop!” Someone – Luke – grabbed Simon’s wrist, and it wasn’t concern in his voice this time but outright fear. “You’re bleeding!”

   “You mean that isn’t supposed to happen?” Clary asked, scared, and of course, she’d only seen runes drawn when Simon was injured and already covered in blood.

   “No, it’s not – damn it, you’re supposed to work upto the powerful runes after years of training, I didn’t _think_ – Simon, let go of the stele!”

   Simon snarled at him, a low black sound that ripped out of his chest without warning, and felt the fingers release his wrist with a flinch. He didn’t care, ignored their fear- and surprise-noises; wings were unfolding in his mind, shadows and starlight, an impossibly beautiful sound like struck crystal, high and ringing, singing, his eyes were closed but he saw-felt his blood drip towards his elbow and fall, a tiny garnet in the dark, a candle-flame, and it hurthurthurt, slow and careful and worse for that, for the precise, skilful butchery carving more than just his arm, sculpting and shaping something that might have been his soul _(you said you wouldn’t be a Shadowhunter, so what is this, what is this, what is)_ and the flawless blackness weaving across his arm like Rumpelstiltskin spinning midnight into silk and ink, a night-star’s spiderweb to catch his _erastes_ in –

   The sudden shock of plunging into icy water. Simon gasped, dropping the stele: it chimed as it hit the floor. Which made no sense, because the floor was plastic, but Simon paid no attention, his eyes wide open now but his mind far, far away from the derelict police station.

   “Simon?” Fear, concern, worry edging close to panic. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

   “I think it’s working,” Simon whispered. The room was still, but he felt biting wind on his cheeks, leaving frost-kisses on his hair. He was flying, higher and higher, and at the same time spreading out – at once he saw the street from above, then more of them, unfolding below him like a map of rushing amber light, all blazing pearls and fire – and he was dissolving into the space between buildings, between and into, slipping through walls and lamp posts and cars, brick concrete tarmac metal-glass-stone-chrome and flesh, skin-skin-skin, blood, people, each of them a walking-talking-thinking pyre of white light and it was too much, too much to contain, he could _hear_ them, a million million voices all talking at once – “I can’t – there’s too much of it – !”

   “You have to direct it!” Simon clutched at his head, trying to stop his skull from splitting, but someone wrenched his hand away, hurriedly pulling the Wayland ring from his finger and pressing it into his palm. “Hold this! Don’t look at everything, Simon, look for Jace! Follow the blood!”

   _Jace._

   When they were born, a baby’s grip-reflex was so strong they could hang from a washing-line if they had to: Simon’s fingers clamped down on the ring just as tightly and instantly the expansion-rising grew easier to bear but why would he follow the blood? That was his, and maybe Hodge’s; no, as Simon’s sense of self spun, around and round in dizzying faster-than-light circles he sought his _erastes_ through the ring, not the blood on it, with flashes of sight-scent-sound leaping out at him from the soft mist wrapped around him like a coat; roasting candied peanuts, the rumbling roar of a train in the subway, a manhole cover, a car, another car, a thousand voices talking on the phone, the tap-tap of a stylus on a Blackberry, rattle of coins, sweet wrappers in a trash can, two rats fighting, a pigeon stealing a tossed-aside piece of hot dog, tourists arguing over a map, _Jace Jace Jace_ , pulling, tugging, spinning like a lost compass until the silver metal shows him North and he stops dead. And flies towards it, pictures like raindrops falling cool against his skin: buildings flashing past, street signs there and gone in a blur of colour and names, up, down, a magnet burning on his arm tugging him on, Jace’s ring hot in his hand and up again, soaring over water, over a familiar skyline. Manhattan. Diving, flashing past fast-food restaurants and expensive bodegas, apartments with balconies above homeless people in rags, moving vans and dogs barking and more water, a bridge. The name leaps out at him, _Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge_ , but instead of following it the runes take him down beneath it, plunging down with the wind in his fingers and instead of a troll there’s an island huddled beneath the bridge, a small strip of land. And he’s swept along by the current once more: people walking dogs, flowers on windowsills, a red bus with _Roosevelt Island Operating Corp._ emblazoned on its side, shiny as a toy; grass, a car, a sandbox full of kids, the mouth-watering smell of someone throwing a barbeque, broken glass. The buildings stopped, Simon’s view skipped like a scratched disc and – flash of wire fencing, weeds and neglected stone, windows lacking their glass, empty as lost teeth. He caught a glimpse of crumbling parapets and a weird four-sided roof before he was abruptly jerked forward, the chain around his arm suddenly pulled viciously so that he flew through the walls and into the abandoned building, inside where it wasn’t so abandoned at all – carpets and wallpaper and electric lights, and he was tugged through a dozen walls before he could get a proper look.

   And then – then he saw Valentine, holding the card with the Cup in it, and behind him a full-length mirror in a wooden frame, and – and standing in front of Valentine was _Jace_ , pale but awake and alive and the wave of screamingly bright joy and _relief_ snapped the trance-spell-rune-thing like a twig.

   Simon slammed back into his body, fighting for breath, Jace’s ring clutched to his chest. “He’s alive,” he gasped, and even through his Shadowhunter gear he could feel his heart pounding against his fist. _Oh god oh god, thank you, he’s ALIVE_. “Jace is alive.”

   “Did you see your mother?” Luke asked anxiously.

   “Give him a damn minute!” Clary snapped at him. She touched Simon’s cheek, and quickly whipped her fingers away. “He’s freezing! Somebody get him some coffee or something!”

   Simon heard footsteps move away, but he was shaking too hard to care. He _was_ cold – freezing, chilled by whatever space he’d flown through on his search.

   Jace’s ring was a warm coal in his fist – the only bit of warmth in the world.

   “What did you see?” Luke pressed, kneeling down beside Simon as Alaric returned with a mug of steaming coffee. “Do you know where he is?”

   “Y-yeah, I think so.” Simon forced his fingers to uncurl from around the ring, setting it clumsily down on the table and folding his hands around the mug. The ring had been warmer, but it probably wouldn’t have been as easy to swallow. He closed his eyes as the coffee slid down his throat, the warmth spreading through him blissfully. “I didn’t get an address, but I’ve got directions. And I got a good look at the place they’re staying in.”

   “They?” Luke asked sharply even as Clary said “If you can describe it, I can try to draw it.”

   “Yeah, they. Valentine was there too. I didn’t see mom.” Simon smiled up at Clary. “And that would be awesome.”

   Gretel went with Clary to find pencils and paper while Simon told Luke what he’d seen.

   “Blackwell’s Island,” Luke said, shaking his head angrily. “I should have guessed.”

   “Blackwell’s? No, I said – ”

   Luke raised a hand to cut him off. “That’s what Roosevelt Island used to be called. Blackwell’s. It was owned by an old Shadowhunter family. I should have thought of that.”

   Clary returned, and Simon sipped the coffee in-between describing the building he’d seen, but his mind was miles away. _Jace!_ Jace was _alive_ , thank-you-Kal-El! The relief of it just _smashed_ him: alive. He’d been afraid – no, he hadn’t dared to think – _alive_. And, from the brief glance Simon had had of him, apparently unhurt. Shaken and pale, but unhurt.

   Now they just had to get him back before that changed. Jace, and Jocelyn. Now that they had confirmed that Jace was at least physically all right, Simon’s fears returned to the question of his mom. He hadn’t seen her in his quick flight through Valentine’s lair. Was she there? Or stashed somewhere else?

   Simiel, back on his arm now that the _telesma_ was only a faint silver shadow on his skin, glowed softly, a candle in a dark room. Simon touched his fingertips to the crystal, and then set the mug down to put the Wayland ring back in his pocket with his cuff. Jocelyn’s stele – someone had picked it up from the floor – went into his belt, alongside his other four seraph blades. Jace had showed him the various sheaths and hidden pockets in the Shadowhunter belt, and Simon slipped the stele into the slim scabbard meant for it.

   “It sounds like a mansard roof,” Clary said, interrupting Simon’s reverie. She was frowning at her sketch; now she turned it so he could see. “Like this?”

   Simon looked at it. “Yeah, just like that.” It was a very close approximation of the building he’d seen in his _telesma_ vision.

   Clary glanced at Luke, sitting on the other side of the table. “Mansard roofs are pretty distinctive. It should help us find this place.”

   Luke nodded and gestured towards the watching wolves. “Someone bring the laptop here,” he ordered. Quickly, the young girl who had been using it carried it over to the table, setting it down gingerly in front of her alpha. Luke thanked her and began typing.

   “You get wi-fi here?” Simon heard himself ask. “Really?”

   “We ride next door’s connection. A couple of the cubs are A-class hackers. Show me that picture, would you?”

   Clary handed it over.

   “Should I be surprised that you just happen to know the randomly obscure bit of knowledge that will save the day?” Simon asked her.

   Clary grinned at him. “We were drawing old houses in art class last year. And mansard roofs were big in the 80s, so hopefully it’ll help us narrow down this building you saw.”

   “Mm.” Simon was playing over the final moments of his vision again in his mind: Jace, and the door, and Valentine. He’d been speaking, gesturing expressively and holding the Ace of Cups...

   _He didn’t get mom to take the Cup out. Why?_ Because she’d refused to? Or because she was...because she couldn’t?

   “Simon? What are you thinking?”

   Luke, Alaric, and Gretel were at the other end of the table, discussing the results of Luke’s search in low voices. They beckoned over the girl who’d been on the computer before; she rolled her eyes and took over, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

   “I’m trying to decide what Hermione would do,” Simon said slowly, his eyes narrowing with thought. “I still kind of wish she’d been the Chosen One instead, you know.”

   “It would have been a much better series,” Clary agreed. “Although much shorter. She’d have kicked Voldie’s ass by third year, tops.”

   “Mm.” How would she have defeated Voldemort if he’d had Ron, and her mother? If she had...what did they have? Simon glanced around the room. They had a werewolf pack, a girl who was scarily good with a gun, and a baby Shadowhunter. Who may or may not have crazy powers that he couldn’t name and had no idea how to control.

   Hm.

   “Found it,” the hacker girl declared. “The Renwick Smallpox Hospital.” She stepped away from the table and bowed. “You’re welcome.”

   Luke paid her little attention. He pushed his chair back and stood up, looking to Gretel. “Tell everyone to prepare for battle,” he commanded, his face and voice equally hard. “As soon as we have the directions, we – ”

   “Actually,” Simon interrupted, “there’s something we have to do first.” Ignoring Luke’s startled glance – and the shock of the werewolves who couldn’t believe he’d not only interrupted but _contradicted_ the alpha – Simon turned to Clary. “I’m going to need your help,” he told her. “And also, an art supplies store.” 

   “What?” She looked confused. “Of course I’ll help, but – with what, exactly?”

   And Simon told them his plan.

* * *

 

NOTES

 _Geh ciaofin vl?_ – Are you scared yet?


	29. Interlude: Aureate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is NOT this week's update - the latest chapter is FINISHED and should be up within the next few days, once I get the all clear from my beta! But this is a necessary interlude, however short. Enjoy!

   “...Like that?”

   “Yes.” A pause. “Just like that. I can’t tell the difference.”

   “Are you sure? I think I could do it again – we have enough left – ”

   “You don’t need to. This is perfect.” Deep breath, hissing through teeth like sand falling in an hourglass. “All right. Let’s do this.”

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta daaa! I told you guys you wouldn't have to wait long! 8D 
> 
> As usual, Cassie/itsjimonbitches/starry_night88 deserves ALL THE AWARDS - but even more so than usual, so EVERYBODY SEND HER KIT KATS! Seriously, she was especially epic this time - she went over the whole chapter IN ONE NIGHT. You guys owe her big time (and so do I).
> 
> Now, for a serious note. I have never placed a 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING
> 
> on any of my chapters before; I hope I wasn't wrong to not-do that. However, THIS chapter DOES contain things that I realise could be considered triggering: specifically, some violence which is...I don't know if it counts as VERY graphic, but I'm just putting a graphic violence warning up here, okay? You have been warned.
> 
> That said, I hope no one IS triggered, and that everyone enjoys themselves! 8D WE'RE SO FREAKING CLOSE TO THE ENDING, YOU GUYS!!!

Gretel gave Clary back her gun under Luke’s unhappy gaze. “I’d _really_ rather the two of you stayed behind,” he said as she holstered it, carefully smoothing her jacket over the bulge it made.

   “And I’d rather Valentine had dropped dead of a heart attack years ago, but we can’t all have what we want, can we?” Simon touched his fingertips to Simiel, drinking in the sensation of cool crystal. It was an anchor, a touchstone in the storm brewing inside his skull. “It’s been hours since he took Jace. We need to _go_.”

   Luke sighed. “Simon – ”

   Simiel caught crystalline fire, opalescent flames blazing up within the _adamas_. _“Don’t_ , _”_ Simon warned softly, as each of the werewolves flinched back. “Don’t even _think_ about it. He has mom. He has _Jace_. You are _not_ leaving me behind.”

   Clary tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “And where Simon goes, I go,” she said firmly.

   “Your mother will never forgive me if anything happens to the two of you,” Luke told Simon quietly. “And I’ll never forgive myself, either, if either of you get hurt.”

   “We can take care of ourselves,” Clary said, something icy in her voice.

   Simon thought of the dark Other in his head, like a second heart beating beneath his skin, and felt a smile twist, wry and a little bit afraid, across his lips. Clary was right. Between her bullets and his blades, he wasn’t worried for them. Let Valentine _try_ to do them harm; Simon wouldn’t let anyone touch Clary, and she had already proven that she could handle herself in this messed up magical underworld.

   It was almost funny; just days ago, he had thought that he trusted Jace more than Clary to keep him safe, because he’d thought her unable to deal with the nightmarish monsters he’d just discovered. And now they had each other’s backs like _parabatai_.

   _Parabatai. Parastathentes. Agela._ The words rippled through his thoughts like stones dropped in dark water.

   “We’ll make our own way there if we have to,” he said aloud.

   Luke shook his head. And gave in.

*

   It should have been dark, Simon thought, staring out the window as the buildings flashed past, edges softened by the rain. This – the final battle, the climax – should be taking place at night, with the stars to witness the bloodshed and midnight to draw a concealing cloak over the gore. A thousand stories had raised him to expect that, to feel a subtle sense of wrongness when that expectation was subverted.

   But it was only late afternoon as the pack’s convoy of cars and trucks wound through the city. Heavy rain – the beginnings of a summer storm – hammered against the car windows, the only sound since Luke had turned off the radio. Simon played with the Wayland ring and felt every inch they travelled take him further and further away from himself. Further and further into the dark, the cold.

   When he closed his eyes, he stood on a beach of red sand, beneath a garnet moon shining on wine-black waves.

   Clary tried to talk, at first. Simon only half-listened, but his attention was caught when he heard Luke say “It was the only way I could think of to quickly acquire a sizeable number of allies against Valentine.”

   _Allies._ “What was?” Simon asked, his attention turning sharp and cold.

   Luke met his eyes in the rear view mirror. “Becoming pack leader. When I knew Valentine had taken your mother... I found the nearest lycanthrope pack and challenged the old Alpha.”

   “And killed him,” Clary said. “That’s how Simon said you take the Alpha’s place. And it’s what you did, isn’t it?”

   “Yes.”

   Simon thought of the new scars on Luke’s throat, thought of how, even an hour ago, the lack of regret in Luke’s tone would have sickened him. But now he understood; now he felt a cool, glinting approval stir in him. It was good. They needed an army, and Luke had found one.

   It was that simple.

   Clary must have felt otherwise, or else the silence waiting behind the fragile conversation had worked its way into her blood, because she fell quiet. She took out her gun, her hands quick and deft as she ejected the magazine and checked the ammo. She topped it up from a box of cartridges she pulled from her pocket, and the magazine slid back into place with a heavy _click_.

   Simon could probably shoot a target, after all the gun-controlled Playstation games, but he couldn’t imagine being so comfortable with a real firearm.

   With Clary gone silent, Simon only had his thoughts to occupy him. They ran in circles, endlessly looping like a scratched disc. Twin boys, burning. The Ravener. Jocelyn’s paintings ripped out of their frames. Hodge handing Valentine the card, and the Cup within it. The new scars on his wrists. _‘Jocelyn is indisposed.’_ And Jace, endlessly Jace: unconscious on the floor with Hodge bending over him; hanging limp in Valentine’s arms; the quick there-and-gone flash of his face in the _telesma_ ’s vision.

   Simon tried, so hard, to hold that second of vision in his mind, to see everything that was there to be seen. But it had been so fast; he remembered an impression of pale skin without bruises, but he had no idea what Jace had been wearing. Had he been afraid? Jace was never scared, but for this, this time –

   Simon replayed the snatch of time over and over as they drove, but he just couldn’t tell.

   _It doesn’t matter if you’ve treated him like a king,_ Simon thought coldly. _You took him. You took mom. You killed my brothers_ , his heart skipped a beat there, a tight, cold clenching in his stomach, _and my grandparents._

 _Today,_ thought the young man who had never drawn human blood before, _today, Valentine, it’s your turn to die._

   _Niishté zir, father._

_I am coming._

   And something deep inside him howled to the grey sky with dark, glorious anticipation. 

*

   It should have felt anti-climatic, finding the hospital so easily, but there was only a building impatience to arrive, a savage restlessness that grew tight and taut as the paved road beneath Luke’s pickup turned to grit and gravel, and then dissolved into dirt and mud. The light in Simiel’s depths changed, the soft, flickering candle-flame-glow becoming harder and colder, and by the time the wire fence around the hospital came into view through the falling rain Simon was nearly ready to jump from the moving car.

   And then it stopped, Luke parking away from the worst of the mud, and the world sharpened into to ice and starlight and cold, dark water.

   _Gi niis i teloc, Valentine,_ Simon thought, pushing Jace’s ring into his pocket as Luke said “Stay here for a minute,” and got out of the car.

   _Parmgi._

   The other werewolves got out of their cars and gathered around Luke. The rain was heavy, a thick wall of water in the light already dimmed by the clouds. The mud would make things harder if they had to fight outside, but the rain might hide them a little from the hospital.

   “Are you all right?” Clary asked softly, and Simon tore his eyes away from the derelict building to look at her.

   “Are you?” he asked after a beat.

   “A little freaked out,” she confessed, her light tone belied by the tension at the corners of her eyes, in the shape of her mouth. “But at least it’s not vampires this time, right?”

   Simon shook his head. “You don’t have to come with us,” he said quietly, suddenly scared not that she’d be hurt, but that she would have to kill, and that that might be worse for her. “You could stay here. I’m sure Luke can have someone stay with you – ”

   “Stop _right there_.” Clary raised her hand sharply, palm out to shut him up. Simon shut up. “If you think I’m letting you go in there alone, you are certifiable. It’s not happening. Don’t even think about it.”

   Simon stared at her. He could push it – could insist – but even if he could force her to stay (and he wasn’t at all sure that he could; who could make Clary do something she didn’t want to?), he wasn’t sure that he had the right. He had said as much to Alec: _‘You can’t take people’s choices away from them.’_ Not even if you thought you knew better; not even to keep them safe.

   _‘That’s not what love is.’_ And god, he loved her. For the firm, unbending light in her eyes and the defiant tilt of her chin, her jaw – what had he ever done to deserve her?

   “Olianthe is one lucky princess,” he murmured, and Clary laughed.

   They fell silent again, because there was nothing left to say. It had already been said, a hundred thousand times, and they knew the words without needing to hear them again.

   It was three other words that wouldn’t leave Simon alone. _Jace. Mom. Valentine._ The mantra played over and over in his head, each word the toll of a deep, heavy bell reverberating in his chest, a silent scream echoing in his ears, over crimson sand. Keeping still was such _effort_ ; everything in him cried out to fling the door open and _run_ , find Jace and Jocelyn and rip Valentine’s throat out with his _bare hands_ –

   Without thinking about it, Simon’s hand pulled his _armask_ _ō_ cuff from his pocket. His fingers didn’t shake, but he could have sworn his bones were vibrating under his skin, humming with some song he couldn’t quite make out as he traced the pattern of silver and crystal stars.

   “What is that?” Clary asked, leaning over for a better look. “Ooh, pretty!”

   “You’re such a magpie,” he teased her, but automatically. He wasn’t sure if this cool clarity was what Jace called the battle-trance, or something more unique, tied to the Thing inside him, but either way he was in no mood – no place – for jokes. He stroked the soft black leather. “It’s an _armask_ _ō_ cuff. Shadowhunters wear them like...like promise rings.”

   Clary’s eyebrows shot up. “So you’re swearing off sex?”

   “What? No.” That one almost made him laugh. “It means you’re taken, in a relationship. Not that you’re going to stay a virgin till marriage.” Impulsively, he unzipped his left-arm vambrace and pushed the cuff over his wrist instead, switching Simiel from one to the other. It clicked into place with a distinct air of approval.

   One that Clary didn’t share. “Is that a good idea? This one,” she touched the vambrace lightly, “would keep you safer...”

   “It probably would,” Simon admitted quietly. He pulled the sleeves of his jacket down, over Simiel and the cuff. “But the coat’s dragon-leather. I think it’ll be okay.”

   Her eyes popped. “ _Dragon_ – _?!_ ”

   At that precise moment, Luke opened the driver’s door. Rain dripped off the ends of his hair. “I don’t suppose either of you would stay in the car if I asked you to?”

   In answer, Simon threw open the door and stepped out into the rain.

   His hair was drenched instantly, but after he quickly zipped up his jacket his upper body, at least, stayed dry. His cargo pants made no attempt at being water-proof, but he ignored the damp clamminess as they clung to his skin. His glasses were going to be a bigger problem: if they didn’t get inside quickly he was going to end up effectively blinded by the raindrops spattering across his lenses.

   “That’s what we’re breaking into?” Clary asked, coming to stand beside him. She was hugging her arms; unlike Simon, she had no magical leather jacket to keep her dry. “Why are we bothering?”

   Luke, coming up behind her with a coat over his arm, said, “It’s a glamour. A very strong one.” He handed Clary the coat – green, and a little big for her, but she shrugged it on over her jacket gratefully. “Can you see through it, Simon?”

   For a moment, Simon couldn’t – he saw the exact same ruin the vision had showed him, all crumbling brick and overgrown with weeds. But then his other-self surged forward from behind the door in his head and the glamour tore, exploding into motes of glittering dust like dandelion seeds ripped apart by a storm, and there it was: a huge Gothic building in prime condition, with every one of the third-floor windows gleaming with light. For an instant Simon thought of the signal fires of Gondor, stretching across the mountains to Rohan, a warning and a call for help.

   Beside him, Clary gasped. She was staring through the faerie stone Alec had passed on to her, and her eyes were wide. “Oh my _god_. That’s what it really looks like?”

   Luke blinked at her. “Where did you get that?”

   “A very glittery warlock,” she informed him, still peering through the hole in the rock. “I can’t believe this. That’s _insane!_ ”

   “You can cope with vampires and werewolves, but illusions push you over the edge?” Simon asked her.

   She shot him a scathing look. “ _No_ , you idiot boy, I’m talking about the _house_. That’s the most gorgeous example of Gothic Revival I’ve ever seen!”

   Luke laughed. Even Simon’s lips quirked, but his eyes had already returned to the oak-studded lawn, tracing the path that would give them the most cover as they approached the grand stone porch.

   “It looks more like a castle than a hospital,” Clary said to herself.

   “Well, it’s one we mean to conquer.” Luke took a deep breath. “All right, you two, listen to me. I want you both to stay next to me. Move when I move. Hold on to my sleeve if you have to. The others are going to stay around us, protecting us, but if you get outside the circle, they won’t be able to guard – ”

   “All of them?”

   Luke glanced at Simon. “What?”

   “Are all of them going to be around us?” Simon repeated.

   Luke looked confused. “Yes. Why?”

   “Because that makes no sense.” Cool, clear certainty. It was basic Call of Duty stuff; he didn’t even stop to think about it. But then, they used videogames to train the military, didn’t they? Maybe the Army ought to start recruiting gamers. Clearly the Shadowhunters should. “This isn’t Thermopylae, we’re not trying to hold back an attacking force. If we bunch up together, we’re presenting them with an easier target.” He raised his arm and pointed, quickly sketching out four possible paths up to the house through the trees. “If we split up, they have to work harder to catch us all. Distract them with two or three larger groups, and the last has a better chance of getting inside without taking damage.”

   Clary, long used to campaigning with him in WoW, didn’t blink, but Luke was staring at him. “Thermopylae?” he asked, sounding slightly strangled.

   “Frank Miller made a comic book series about it,” Simon told him calmly. He raised his eyebrows at Luke. “This isn’t what Shadowhunters usually do, is it?” Hunting through urban streets, alone or in small teams, was one thing. Raiding a building, pitched battle...that was another.

   “No,” Luke said slowly. “Nor werewolves, either.” He was still watching Simon as though Simon had suddenly turned into a stranger before his eyes.

   Irritation scratched at the back of Simon’s skull, sharp claws and sharper teeth. “Then let’s do it my way and get going.”

   When Luke turned away to pass on the change in plan, Simon ran his fingers over the weapons at his belt – Sandalphon, Israfel, Anael, Theliel, and Jace’s knife that Alaric had returned to him – and then pushed up his sleeve and drew his _armask_ _ō_ blade. It flared as it touched his fingers, and locked against his palm as if it and he were two pieces of one machine. “ _Simiel_ ,” and the blade extended in a flash of crystalline light at the invocation.

   Clary pulled out her gun.

   Everyone gathered nearer the fence. More than a few of Luke’s pack gave the teenagers sharp glances – and Simiel unhappy, wary looks – but no one protested their presence. Simon no longer cared about them.

   _Jace. Mom. Valentine._

   He heard feathers rustling beneath the sound of the rain.

   The chain-link fence had not disappeared with the glamour; it was wholly real. One swipe of Alaric’s suddenly claw-tipped hand parted it like water, and yes, yes, _now_ , Simon couldn’t stand it any longer. Luke and Alaric peeled the fencing back and then they were through, all of them, men and women dissolving into fur and fangs and Simiel blazing star-bright in Simon’s fist, mud under his feet but he didn’t know how to slip and rain, rain, rain everywhere. The pack slid smoothly into four, dividing like a river into whitewater tributaries, all snarls and howls and Simon threw his head back and howled with them, a loud shining scream of wordless rage and hunger and promise.

   _Teloc i niis, Valentine! Carma sa baeovib-restil gi-doalim!_

   The thing inside him spread black wings and laughed.

   And kept laughing, wild and fearless as the rain fell around him like tears and Simiel blazed and Simon sensed the Forsaken’s approach before he saw them, heard them like a jagged, discordant mess of broken notes. Luke was on one side of him and Clary on the other, pale but standing firm; Luke held a knife and the Forsaken were huge, great, lumbering brutes and had Simon ever been afraid of them? Had he ever thought they were something to fear, really? He saw-heard the berserker creatures smash into the horse-sized wolves and bared his teeth in a trickster-grin as one of the vacant-eyed, rune-defiled Forsaken appeared in front of him like a pale-skinned mountain armed with a rusty axe, _come and get me,_ laughing out loud as he danced feather-light over the grass, the mud, impossible to lose his footing and Luke calling his name, shocked-horrified, Clary’s gunshot, Simiel punching under the monster-man’s ribcage and up into its heart as Clary took it between the eyes.

   He spun to face her. “Nice shot, Lewis,” he grinned.

   Her red hair was plastered to her head, her face. She looked as shocked as Luke. “Simon...”

   “No time,” he reminded her, and ran on, leaving them to catch up.

   It was chaos. The Forsaken were silent but the wolves howled, shrieked, turned back to human form and screamed as bones broke and shattered, limbs crushed, blood spilled until the mud was nearly as much plasma as rain. But Simon’s plan had worked; the Forsaken were divided, and the wolves made better targets, bigger and more obvious, giving Simon and Clary and Luke room to manoeuvre, to slip between the frantic, desperate duels taking place all over the lawn. Simon saw a Forsaken stumbling back, thick black blood spurting from her gaping throat; spotted another missing an arm, still using the other to beat a grey-furred werewolf to a chunky pulp.

   Simon didn’t pause to help, barely glanced at the massacre. _Jace. Mom. Valentine._

 _Niishté zir_.

   Much, much faster than if they had followed Luke’s plan, Simon’s boots touched down on the stone porch. He turned and grasped Clary’s wrist, pulling her after him, under the shelter of the porch roof and out of the rain.

   “They’re dying!” Clary cried, her eyes wide and shocky. The cold of the rain probably hadn’t helped, Simon thought clinically. “We have to help them, we have to stop!”

   Simon blinked at her. “Jace and mom are still inside.”

   Clary exploded. “Two people aren’t worth thirty!” she screamed at him. “Are you _actually insane?_ We have to fall back, we can try again, some other way, one that won’t get everyone killed!”

   _Does not compute._ Simon stared at her, struggling to understand why she was so upset. “I’m not leaving mom and Jace,” he said finally, and Clary opened her mouth to answer –

   But Luke caught up with them, finally – when had they gotten separated? Simon hadn’t even noticed – and snapped, “You two, inside. Quickly!”

   He had a sword in his hand. Simon hadn’t noticed that either.

   The door was intricately carved wood. Simon flicked his eyes over it and tried the handle, uninterested in the exquisite carvings. Everything flickered and shivered, like the heat-haze above train tracks in summer, and when the door proved to be locked he didn’t hesitate a heartbeat before smashing Simiel’s hilt into the lock with an easy, liquid strength that should have surprised him and didn’t.

   Something gave in the mechanism, and the door swung open the second time he tried it.

   He did not look back as he stepped inside.

   They were in a stone corridor, lit by dim torches. Clary was breathing hard, her breath hitching occasionally as if she might be about to cry.

   Luke tried to take down one of the torches from the walls, but they were locked in place. Simiel blazed brighter with Simon’s will, and he raised his arm, letting the seraph blade’s light stream down the hallway in front of them.

   “Smart woman, your mother,” Luke said, glancing at it.

   Simon didn’t reply. _I could give Alec one,_ Isabelle had said of _armask_ _ō_ blades. Had the Silent Brothers also assumed that it was Jocelyn who had left Simiel for Simon? It would explain why they hadn’t freaked about Teh Gay.

   He saw no reason to correct the assumption.

   “I could draw the _telesma_ again,” he said instead, glancing left, then right. Jace. Jocelyn. Where were they in this place? Was Simon’s mom even here? He had to believe she was. “See which way to go.”

   “No,” Luke said sharply. “You bled last time, and you’re tired now. You don’t have the training or the experience to use _telesme_ properly, Simon. We’ll find your mother ourselves.”

   “And Jace.”

   A strange look passed over Luke’s face before he looked away. “And Jace.”

   Simon felt his lips curve upwards, smooth and sweet and cold. “If you have a problem with me being an icky-scary queer, Luke, you can just say so,” he purred. Without waiting for an answer, he took Clary’s hand with his free one and started walking down the corridor, his eyes scanning everything.

   “What are you doing, Simon?” Clary asked him, keeping her voice low so that Luke – who had, it seemed, chosen to follow – wouldn’t overhear. “What’s wrong with you?”

   “I just want to find my mom and Jace.” _Jace!_ He howled silently. And, also –

   _Valentine._

   A spark of light ran down the edge of Simiel’s blade, glittering.

   “But the werewolves – ”

   “I didn’t force them to come. I didn’t even ask them to.” Which way? Again, Simon wished for the _parastathentes_ rune on his skin: if only he could have sensed where Jace was in this place! “Luke did that. If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at him.”

   “Oh, I am,” Clary said darkly. She swallowed hard. “But this isn’t like you. I – ” She stopped. “What’s that?”

   Simon’s eyes snapped to her, and then to the spot on the floor her finger indicated. Kneeling, he held Simiel so its light caressed the etching on the granite floor: a slender knife within a perfect circle.

   Simon ran his fingertips over it, something pulsing behind his eyes.

   “What does it mean?” Clary asked softly.

   “It’s the Circle’s sigil,” Luke answered. He’d caught up with them. “Proof that they’re here.”  

   There was a sharp-edged anticipation in his voice. Simon felt it too, sweet as venom on his tongue; he savoured it as he unfolded back to his feet. “Let’s keep going.”

   They passed dozens of doors, regularly spaced along the hallways. They could have been rooms for the patients, back when the building was a hospital; Simon couldn’t care less, but he and Luke and Clary checked each one. Some were empty, containing only dust; others reminded Simon of the training room at the Institute, the walls weighed down with weapons of all kinds; and in all of them Simon could hear sounds of the battle still taking place outside, the howls and the roars clashing like swords, pain and triumph and loss and fury.

   Black waves on red sand.

   He turned away from the last door and up the spiral staircase at the end of the corridor, taking the steps two at a time. Simiel burned, icy fire that licked at the walls and the stone floor, clawed fingers of light that caught on every door on the upper corridor.

   He opened the first as Luke and Clary hurried to catch up with him.

   It was another weapons room. Axes, swords, knives, sleek bows; all of it unimportant, all of it _useless_ as something fierce squeezed bands of black steel around his lungs.

   “Simon...” Clary tried, but Simon’s lips pulled back from his teeth with frustration and he almost slammed the door shut.

   The next room was empty again. Would they have to search every room in the entire building? How else?

   _If runes are music, shouldn’t I be able to hear Jace’s?_ Could you track a Shadowhunter that way?

   “Luke.” He seemed startled to be addressed: Simon didn’t care. “Can you track someone by their runes? The sound they make?”

   “The sound – Simon, what are you talking about?”

   Simon hissed with impatience. “The music, the songs in the runes! Is there any way to hear them when they’re on a Shadowhunter?”

   “Simon...” Luke was staring now, something hesitant and almost, almost afraid written around his eyes. “There’s nothing musical about runes.”

   “Yes there _is_ ,” Simon insisted. “Maybe you can’t hear them anymore because you’re a werewolf – but you must _remember_ – ”

   “Simon.” Luke stopped, and stepped in front of him, resting a hand on Simon’s shoulder to keep him still for a moment. Simon nearly ripped his hand off. _Jace! There’s no time for this, we have to find JACE!_ “No one can ‘hear’ runes. There’s no music in them. What is it you’ve been hearing?”

   Simon faltered, confused, the wings in his mind crumbling like Icarus’. “I...”

   Neither of them noticed Clary striding forward and putting her hand on the third door’s handle.

   But they heard her gasp, and both males spun to look.

   When Jace had escorted Simon back to his apartment, only Simon’s room had been untouched – the rest of the place had been stripped bare. The two of them had wondered at it, wondered why the furniture and fridge had been taken, and for what purpose. But then there had been the Forsaken, and Dorothea, and Valentine’s Shadowhunters, and Simon, at least, had forgotten about it.

   This was where Jocelyn’s things had been taken. This was why.

   He and Clary and Luke stood in the doorway, staring at a replica of Jocelyn’s bedroom so perfect that, for a moment, Simon thought that the door was a portal and he was staring back through time and space at his own home. There was his mom’s battered chest of drawers, with her wooden jewellery box and New York snowglobe lying next to her hairbrush on top of it. There was the stack of well-loved books in the corner, treasures gleaned from a dozen second-hand stores; there was her Ikea wardrobe that she and Simon had covered in stickers when Simon was six years old; there was the music box Luke had bought her four birthdays ago, the one that had turned her eyes misty when she heard its song. Even the carpet had the familiar stain near the far wall where Jocelyn had spilled a cup of coffee last winter.

   And lying in her own bed near the window...

_“Mom!”_

   The world went silver, and Simon was beside his mother faster than thought, faster than he’d ever moved before, and Simiel was shining bright and brighter and brightest, its light striking vicious flashes on the silver chains around Jocelyn’s wrists, and she was unconscious, asleep, lying on the bed as bonelessly as Jace had lain on the floor and Simon would kill Valentine for this, _slaughter_ him, rip him apart _atom from atom_ for this!

   “Wait!” Luke said frantically, when Simon angled his blade to cut through the chains, _“Wait_. We have to be careful, Simon!”

   “Careful of _what?”_ he snarled, and the room was full of white, crystalline light, crashing and breaking like surf, flooding the space so that Luke couldn’t get past the door, and Simiel was so, so cold in Simon’s hand.

   _Glittering like ice, like death..._

   “She hasn’t woken up,” Luke pointed out. He sounded as though he was trying to be gentle, but his voice came out strained. Simon didn’t care if the light was hurting him. “Which means it’s likely a spell. One that might alert Valentine if someone touches her.”

   Simon’s mind offered up the implications in an instant – and Luke flinched back into the hallway as the seraph-light turned _blinding_.

   “You want me to leave her?” Simon hissed, and even Clary was shielding her eyes with her hand but Simon didn’t care, couldn’t care, not with every drop of black-winged, rage-born _thing_ inside him turning away from his mom and Jace and Valentine to fix Luke with its stare instead.

   He saw fear on Luke’s face.

   And he liked it.

   “Of course not,” Luke whispered. “But maybe we should – ”

   “Maybe you should stop talking,” Simon crooned, a soft, velvety purr, and Luke’s jaw snapped shut with a click. “If Valentine wants to come and meet me, then let him. By the time I’m done introducing myself, he’ll be wishing I’d burned with my brothers.”

   Without another word he turned his back on Luke. With a flick of his wrist all the light in the room abruptly rushed into his blade, plunging the bedroom back into silvery shadow; Simiel shone and the light seemed to crystallise within the _adamas_ and Simon struck.

   _One. Two_. Simiel cut through the silver chains like soft cheese, leaving only a single link dangling from each delicate manacle. Simon left those alone, unwilling to risk accidentally cutting his mom. Looking over her to check for any more bindings, he paused, strangely, stupidly shocked to see the ghosts of past runes on his mother’s skin – because of course he could see them now. They gleamed like insets of pearl and steel on her arms, her collarbone...

   Then he realised _why_ he could see them – not because the block on his mind was gone, but because Jocelyn was wearing a white, Victorian-esque nightgown and abruptly Simon was fighting back rage again, was trying not to think of Valentine undressing her, touching her, because if he did he was going to lose it and the world was already trembling, vibrating like glass about to shatter, and if it blew – if the thing inside him came screaming out of the abyss for _real,_ Simon had no idea what would happen.

   Had no idea who would still be standing when it was over.

   He took a viciously controlled step away from the bed, his vision washed in nuclear-white and green. “Take her back to the cars,” he ordered, struggling to keep the lightning out of his voice. “You can do that, can’t you?”

   “And leave you alone?” Luke demanded. “No. _No_. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Simon, but I am not leaving you in Valentine’s damn stronghold by yourself!”

   “He won’t be alone,” Clary said coolly, brushing past Luke as she stepped into the room. “He’ll have me.”

   Simon glanced at her, tugged towards her green eyes like the moon to the Earth. No, _she_ was the moon, for all that Simon was the one silver and strange; she hesitated to meet his eyes and he felt the rhythm of the red waves stutter, felt them freeze, the tides briefly pulled apart and broken.

   But she did look up. She looked at him, and there was uncertainty in the green but there was relief in the red, because she hadn’t turned away. Because the hesitance in her was braced with the same hardness he recognised in himself, and it was Clary, who could handle anything and would say so if he couldn’t, and he smiled at her.

   It took her a second to smile back, but when she did, it was sharp and slender as a sickle moon.

   “I’ll have Clary,” Simon said softly, echoing her.

   Luke growled. “You’re lunatics, both of you!” But Simon saw how his eyes flicked nervously, longingly, towards Jocelyn.

   “We can take care of ourselves,” Simon told him. “Mom can’t. She needs you, Luke.”

   He felt no guilt at so ruthlessly manipulating the man: his mom couldn’t defend herself, and Simon had to go find Jace. Clary had to stay with him. That only left Luke to take care of Jocelyn, and Simon would cut his own throat before he left his mom with anyone who wouldn’t fight to the death to keep her safe, just as Simon would.

   As Luke would.

   “And you’ll come back and find us,” Clary added, instantly falling in alongside Simon. “Won’t you?”

   “Of course I will,” Luke growled. He hesitated a moment more: then, with a vicious curse, stalked across the room to the bed.

   Simon dispassionately noted the softness in Luke’s face as he carefully lifted Jocelyn from the bed, grimly satisfied by the tenderness with which Luke held her. Yes. Luke would keep her safe.

   Which left Simon free to concentrate on finding Jace.

   When Jocelyn was settled in his arms, Luke looked from Simon to Clary and back again. “Stay _here_ ,” he said fiercely. “And by the Angel, if anyone comes, _hide_. I’ll be back for you as quickly as I can.”

   Simon nodded absently, and with a kind of despairing resignation Luke left them.

   “We’re not going to be here when he gets back, are we?” Clary asked quietly.

   “Almost certainly not,” Simon agreed. He looked at her. “You’re not afraid of me.” It wasn’t a question.

   “Of course not,” she scoffed.

   “Why not?” Simon took a deep breath and closed his eyes, every bone in his body resonating with the _need_ to find Jace, the heroin-hit-craving to rip Valentine’s heart out of his chest and _feed it to him_. He felt Clary’s hand, soft and warm, curl around the back of his neck and gently tug his head down. Their foreheads brushed, and he was shaking, inside and out, a nuclear bomb with the trip-switch stuck right in the middle, a nudge away from safety and from white-out. “I’m scared of me,” he whispered against her cheek.

   “I’m not,” Clary said softly. “I know you’d never hurt me.”

   Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

   She kissed his cheek, and the claws in Simon’s chest loosened. He breathed out, trembling, and felt himself relax, the tension melting into pearl and silk under her hand. No. He would never, ever hurt her. No matter what he was, no matter what he could do, he would never, ever hurt her, and the certainty of it was a golden collar around his throat, around his heart. It was a strange kind of bliss, and an earth-shattering relief, to willingly allow himself to be leashed; to know that no matter how far from human he might go, this girl, with her charcoal-smudged fingers and her unselfconscious laugh and the way she danced as if no one was watching – this girl could pull the chain, and call him back.

   “Never,” he whispered, satin-soft and fire-fierce, and the other-Simon purred approval.

   Clary patted his cheek. “Well, you might blind me,” she grinned. “Next time, give me a head’s up before you go supernova with your big sword, so I can whip out my shades first.”

   Simon laughed, gently pulling away from her. “I’ll try and do that,” he promised.

   And broke that promise instantly as Simiel abruptly flared with warning, and a half-familiar voice drawled “Well, well. Isn’t this cosy?”

   Clary spun around and Simon’s eyes snapped to the door. He snarled, because he hadn’t recognised Alaric but he remembered this man, remembered the red hair and the thick jaw from when he’d kicked the Forsaken corpse at Simon’s apartment.

   Simon remembered the flat, empty tone of Jace’s voice saying _‘Those men killed my father.’_

   “You killed Michael Wayland,” he hissed.

   The man looked surprised, then amused. “I hope you haven’t come all this way to avenge _him_ ,” he said, stepping into the room. Simiel’s light caught on the two long, thin knives he held in his hands.

   “No,” Simon crooned, warm red wine and fur on naked skin, “but it’ll make the perfect side-dish,” and he darted around Clary and lunged, swinging Simiel two-handed like Thor’s hammer and it was full of white lightning, a blizzard of snarling snapping electric snakes casting shadows on the wall –

   The blade hit steel and sang a war-cry and Simon understood why Jace had laughed against the Forsaken, felt the same joyous exultation spilling out of his own throat as he ducked under his enemy’s strike and snapped forward, under and into his guard and the man was so slow, so pathetically, laughably slow, Simon could have cut his throat then and there but that would be too quick, too merciful for someone who had left a ten year old standing in his father’s blood. And just like that the vicious-edged playfulness caught fire, a terrible cold blazing fire at the reminder of what Jace had gone through; _it soaked my shoes_ and Simon whipped his arm across, carved through the man’s stupid red robe like cutting paper, and instantly the crimson fabric grew dark and wet.

   _They overpowered my father_

   Switched hands and swayed and skipped and sliced, again, one-two-three like Zorro leaving his mark but Simon wasn’t interested in a signature, he wanted pain, he wanted _blood_ –

   _and cut his throat_

   Faster than wind, than thought, he carved Simiel’s razor-point down the man’s arm and spun away out of reach as red ran wet, wet and dark –

   _The blood_

   “I never killed Wayland!” The man cried, panicking now, whoops, too late, you should have run, you should have run run run like the gingerbread man but Simon would have caught him anyway and cut out his raisin eyes – “I swear it, we had nothing to do with it! It was all Valentine!”

   _ran across the floor_

   “His orders,” Simon purred, and Michael Wayland’s murderer screamed as Simon slashed his crystal sword across the back of the man’s legs. Fabric and skin and muscle gave, and Simon didn’t know enough about anatomy to be sure he’d cut the tendons but the Shadowhunter crumpled. “You should have disobeyed.”

   _It_

   “It wasn’t me!” and Clary looked pale, pale and resolute and watching coolly and she did not pull the leash, not even with the bloodied, broken man clutching a useless arm to his chest – “It wasn’t, I swear it, I swear by the Angel!” –

   _soaked_

   Simon was an arctic storm sheathed in skin and Simiel was dripping blood onto the carpet, onto Simon’s mother’s carpet, in what could have been her room with all her things watching, with his childhood watching, and he watched a man plead for his life and felt like laughing and like screaming –

_my_

   “Pass the Devil my regards,” he breathed, nearly laughing, nearly snarling, and Simiel swung and flashed –

_shoes._

   Simon felt the meaty resistance all the way up his arms; his seraph blade was sharper than anything he could imagine, but skin and muscle and fat and bone and all the rest of it were tangible. And yet it was no struggle, no difficulty to guide his sword through the Shadowhunter’s neck; blood _spurted_ , a garnet fountain of it that took him by surprise even as Simiel slid through the man’s spine and out the other side and the blood splashed him, face and chest as the head hit the ground and the meat that had just been a man followed it onto the carpet a second later.

   Wet. Warm, wet red, all over his face and jacket, on his cheeks like war-paint. Dripping crimson streaks on the lenses of his glasses, that didn’t obscure enough to disguise what he’d just done.

   Not a Ravener. Not a Forsaken. Not even a vampire, although he didn’t know if Simiel’s light had killed any of the vampires at the Dumort that night: maybe they’d only been burned, and had healed and survived like Raphael had.

   But.

   A human being. He’d killed another human being.

   _Another?_ A soft voice whispered. _That implies that you’re one too, Simon. And we’re not so sure of that anymore, are we?_

   Simon stood still. He was breathing hard, and the meat – the _body_ , he corrected himself harshly, more shaken by his automatic dismissal of what had just seconds ago been alive, thinking, dreaming, than by the death itself – wasn’t breathing at all. But it was still bleeding, gouts of blood spurting from the neck like a Monty Python sketch, soaking into the carpet.

   _It soaked my shoes._

   “Are you all right?” Clary asked, and Simon hesitated, afraid of what he would see in her eyes.

   Afraid of what he might see staring back at him.

   But when he looked up, she didn’t flinch, even as their gazes locked through the sheen of blood on his glasses. She – he thought – Simon _hoped_ that she was more shocked than afraid, but he couldn’t blame her if she realised that she couldn’t stay true to her promise never to be scared of him.

   _I’m scared of me._

   But she didn’t flinch, and as she looked at him the stunned, shaky glaze in her eyes faded. She sucked in a breath, and it juddered, a little, in her throat.

   “Did he really kill Jace’s dad?” she asked, and in that instant Simon would have gone down on his knees for her with gratitude, with heart-swept adoration, if she had only crooked her finger at him. One hint of her desires and he would have kissed her, or killed for her, for looking at him and seeing a human being.

  “He really did,” Simon confirmed quietly, and Clary inhaled again, slow and deliberate.

   The pool of blood had slowed. It was a few inches away from Simon’s boots now, and it could have been red ink for all that it seemed to matter. Simon reached inside himself, searching for _something_ , some reaction to taking a life. Shouldn’t he be – horrified? Sickened? Shouldn’t he be crying, or freaking out, fighting off a panic attack? Shouldn’t he be throwing up at the way the blood gleamed in the light?

   The way it tasted, when he ran his tongue over his lips?

   Instead, he liked it. And all he found, when he searched beneath his skin, was a wild, vicious triumph, as far from human as the sound of a wolf’s howl echoing over snow and pine. And entwined within it: the sharp desire to pick up the bloodied head and lay it at Jace’s feet as an offering, a dowry; to put his mouth on Jace’s ankles and work his way up to his _eraste_ ’s lips and leave hungry red kisses on every inch of skin in-between. Simon’s eyes fluttered closed, his breath catching as the thought unfolded in his mind fully-formed: oh, to wash his lover clean of Michael Wayland’s blood with that of his murderer...

   Simon swayed a little on his feet, his mouth gone abruptly dry at the fantasy, imagining all that gleaming red sliding over Jace’s naked skin like silk... The taste of it on Jace’s lips when Simon took his mouth... He would wrap ebony wings around Jace, enclosing them both in velvet feathers, away from the rest of the world –

   He was so lost in it that he didn’t hear the second man’s approach until suddenly there was a crushing arm hooked around his throat and Clary was shouting “Let him _go!_ ” and he hadn’t cleaned his glasses, everything was a confused tangle of red and seraph fire spilling from between his fingers and no, _no,_ the tightness around his neck, just like Alec, the bruising, crushing, air, can’t breathe, no, _no_ –

   “You’re coming with me, you damn brat,” the man hissed. “Your father’s waiting for you.”

   All-too-human panic burst like rotten fruit and Simon forgot his little bit of training, forgot his powers, forgot what it felt like to drive a knife through a spine in the wash of sick mortal helplessness. His heart screeched to a halt like the Impala driven off the road, or was it racing, he couldn’t tell, couldn’t _tell_ but his lungs were screaming for air, Clary lunged for the Shadowhunter with a furious scream and burning, fire, trying to cough and trying to gasp and fighting to hold onto Simiel as the older, bigger, stronger man worked to pry it from Simon’s grip with gloved fingers –

   _No – NO!_

   His attacker roared with sudden pain. “Get off me, you little bitch!”

   “Who are you calling a bitch?” Clary snarled, and –

   The world exploded.

   It exploded just behind Simon’s head, and abruptly the pressure around his throat went slack and his ears were ringing-ringing-ringing and he gulped huge swallows of air, greedily, desperately. Simon clawed the fingers from around his neck, but the man had already become dead weight – was already sliding to the floor.

   When Simon turned around, Clary was shaking. There was blood splatter on her face and clothes and she was staring at the new corpse as if she couldn’t tear her eyes away, and Simon’s heart sank, fell and broke against the ground.

   The one thing he had hoped Clary wouldn’t have to do...

   He stepped forward and pulled her against his chest, turning her away from the body. “Don’t look,” he said fiercely, uselessly, because she already had, she’d already seen the mangled crater that used to be a face and the brain matter splattered on the wall, and he felt so useless, a thousand times more helpless than he had being choked. “It’s okay. It’s all right. There was nothing else you could do.”

   “H-he was going, going to kill you,” Clary gasped, and Simon squeezed his eyes shut against the sting in them because she was trembling in his arms, shaking as if with cold.

   “Yeah, he was,” Simon whispered, carefully holding Simiel out of the way as he stroked her hair. There was nothing sexual in it; he wasn’t thinking of kisses now, bloody or sweet. He just wanted to hold her together, in one piece, until she could do it for herself again. “That’s three times you’ve saved my life, Lewis. Three times _today_. It’s getting ridiculous.”

   That jolted a watery laugh out of her, and Simon squeezed her tightly. She was still holding the gun; he could feel the hard press of it against his chest, between their bodies.

   He wanted to tell her to put it away, but the words wouldn’t come. And he wished, he _wished_ Clary had stayed at the police station, or gone home, gone somewhere that was safe. Somewhere where she wouldn’t have had to make the choice between killing a stranger and saving a friend.

   “There was nothing else you could do,” he whispered into her hair, and he was covered in blood but she didn’t seem to care. It was already drying, gluing the two of them together, and he knew nothing anyone could have said or done would have convinced her to stay away; knew it, because nothing could have convinced _him_ , if their positions had been reversed.

   But he wished that she wasn’t here all the same.

   Even though he felt a vicious approval for her actions. That she had been forced to make the choice to kill sickened him; that she had been strong enough to act instead of quailing or flinching made him want to cover her in gold leaf and build temples in her name.

   And that there was enough left of the man’s face for Simon to recognise him... The second Shadowhunter he and Jace had seen at the apartment; the one named Pangborn. That the second of Michael Wayland’s killers was taken care of... It lit a savage satisfaction in him.

   “Should we go find Luke?” he asked softly, without letting go of her. As if, maybe, he could keep the memory of the last few minutes away if she just stayed in his arms.

   “No,” and sick guilt bit him at the wave of relief he felt then. For Clary, he would have – would have delayed finding Jace, but it would have been – “No.” She took a deep breath and gently disentangled herself from him. “No. Let’s – we’ve got to find Jace still.” She swallowed, and Simon noticed that she didn’t holster her gun. “So let’s find the blond twink and get out of here already.”

   “Are you sure?” Her choice. It would always, always be her choice, but –

   She closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, her expression was set. “He was going to kill you. I’d do it again.” She turned around and stepped deliberately over the blood on the floor. “I’ll freak out later. Now come on, before more of them show up.”

*

   Simon cleaned his glasses as they tried the rest of the doors on the corridor, using an unstained bit of shirt and some spit to get the worst of the red off. The left sleeve of his jacket was only flecked with blood, and he used that to clean his face, but there was nothing he could do about his clothes.

   Nothing he wanted to do about them, either. He kept waiting for the horror to hit him – but it must have gotten lost on the way to his headspace, misread the map of tangled ice and silk and cinnamon-fire that could have guided it through his mind, because it never came.

   And that terrified him. Somewhere beyond the molten-glass world Simon walked through, he could feel his own terror. Distant, and little, and meaningless.

   They kept opening doors. There was nothing else to do, and now that the moment of bloodshed was over impatience lashed at Simon like a whip, serpent-fanged and hissing like a rattlesnake. He stood close to Clary, watchful and careful, neither of them saying anything as they found the rest of his mom’s apartment, recreated down to the smallest detail: the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, everything repaired as if it had never been broken – all of it. Even Jocelyn’s paintings were somehow back in their frames, smooth and untouched as if by (probably by) magic. It never grew less disorientating, opening a polished wooden door in Valentine’s house, and finding his own home staring back at him.

   Most of it. He and Clary didn’t find Simon’s bedroom, and Simon wondered if his own things were all still in the apartment. And wondered why they, and nothing else, had been left behind.

   Simiel stayed calm and softly-lit in Simon’s hand, a candle instead of a sun – until they found another weapons room. The seraph blade flashed a searing warning but Simon didn’t need it: he grabbed Clary and jerked her away from the open doorway instinctively, his heart pounding.

   “What?” Clary asked, gripping her gun. “What is it?”

   For a moment, Simon couldn’t answer. “There’s something in there,” he managed. It felt like Abbadon – not the same, and not, thank the TARDIS, not as strong, but after meeting the Greater Demon this morning there was no way to mistake it. _Demon,_ or at least _demonic_ , that power, that _presence,_ and it raised the hackles on the back of his neck, it made him want to lunge, want to laugh, want to dance fire out of the sky and bring it _crashing down_ – “It’s – not human.” He took a step back, pulling her with him. “And not safe.”

   “How do you know?” Despite her question, she didn’t try to pull free of his grip.

   “I just do.” Old. Old and wild, with a song like sulphur-scented siren-song, bloodstained snarls and mad, howling laughter in the face of a storm, thunder-cymbals and drums pounding like hunted hearts – it curled clawed fingers in his collarbone and pulled hard; and Castiel help him, but he wanted to sing that song. Knew the choir would welcome him into the chorus.

   But it wouldn’t welcome a mundane, wouldn’t welcome Clary, and Simon took another step away and kicked the door shut, breathing hard as if he’d just run a marathon. “Let’s try the next one,” he said shakily. Clary took one glance at his face and made no protest.

   The next room... The next room was the last one on the right of the corridor, and there was no jolt, no magic, as he pressed the handle down and swung it open, wary and ready for another sickly-beautiful inhuman _presence_. There was nothing, until a blond figure turned from the window at the movement of the door – and then there was everything.

   Simon was across the room in an instant and Jace caught him, frantic with fear-longing-need, clutching and shaking and their mouths met like magnets, harsh and hurting and it should have been bliss, should have been and was and wasn’t; it was salt and sapphire splinters stuck in your throat and it was the first breath of dawn after holding your breath all night long and neither of them, neither of them caring, oh God he was here, he was here and he was okay, Jace, Jace, _Jace_ –

   A slightly strangled sound made them break off. Clary was still standing near the doorway, her eyes wide. Her cheeks were flushed. “Don’t mind me!” she said hurriedly as they both looked at her. “I – um. I think you just gave me an entirely inappropriate blood-kink, Simon. Thank you. Today just got about 26% more fucked-up.”

   _And 50% hotter_ went unsaid: Simon felt too raw to laugh, but he grinned at her, relief deep enough to drown in crashing through his veins. He turned back to Jace, and the blond was staring at him as if he’d only just noticed all the blood.

   “What _happened?_ ” Jace demanded, and the whites of his eyes were stark against his golden skin. His fingertips ghosted over the bandage on Simon’s cheek, and Simon’s eyelids fluttered, everything in him aching to push into Jace’s touch even as it stung, but the blond’s hands had already moved to Simon’s torso, expertly searching for injury. “By the Angel, Simon, tell me none of this is yours!”

   “No – I don’t think any of it’s mine.” Simon’s breath shuddered out of him, and it hurt – the weight of fear leaving him, the relief so intense it was like knives in his chest. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “I promise.” Jace’s hands felt too good, and he shook his head to clear it. “Jace, stop, we don’t have time for this!” He caught Jace’s wrist, halting and he had never thought of his _erastes_ as delicate, but suddenly Jace’s bones felt as breakable as a bird’s under his fingers. He let go quickly, cupping Jace’s jaw instead, Simiel still in his other hand. “I’m fine, really, it’s not my blood, but we have to go, now, before – ”

    “Go? Why would I – there’s a werewolf pack outside, Simon. We can’t go anywhere.”

   Simon shook his head, frustrated. “It’s Luke’s, Luke’s a werewolf – look, it’s a long story, we can get into it later, but they’re on our side! They came with us to rescue you.”

   “Rescue?” Something queer, and fragile, flickered in Jace’s eyes. “I don’t need to be rescued. There’s been a misunderstanding.”

   “A...” Simon frowned at him, confused, and for the first time he took in Jace’s appearance – and the room he was standing in. This was no prison cell; there hadn’t even been a lock on the door, he remembered suddenly. He glanced around, silently taking in the crystal chandelier above their heads, the polished wood panelling and the thick, rich carpet beneath their feet. Oil paintings hung on the walls, like something out of a museum or a period drama; one wall was given over to shelves of leather-bound books. The mirror from the _telesma_ -vision hung on the far wall, gleaming within its intricately carved frame, and a long dining table ran down the centre of the room, set with fine china and delicate, flute-like glasses as if for the most exquisite dinner party.

   He turned back to Jace, and this time he looked past his lover’s familiar features. He hadn’t consciously absorbed the lack of Jace’s injuries, but of course he’d been hurt battling Abbadon – and none of those wounds lingered on his skin now. The bruises were gone, and he’d showered within the last few hours; his gold hair wisped around his head like dandelion silk.

   As if in response to the scrutiny, Jace brushed a few loose strands behind his ear. His hand looked naked without the Wayland ring.

   “What’s going on?” Simon asked slowly.

   “Should I give you two some privacy?” Clary asked tartly.

   If Jace picked up on her sarcasm, he gave no sign of it. “That might be best,” he answered, without looking away from Simon.

   A pause. “Fine,” Clary said. “But don’t take too long with your drama. I really, _really_ want to get home and have a bubble bath.”

   “What’s going on?” Simon repeated as the door closed behind her. “She’s right, Jace, we need to _go_.”

   But Jace shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I don’t need to – you don’t understand, Simon, it’s all been a mistake.”

   “Did you kidnap yourself?” Simon demanded, more harshly than he’d meant, but his throat was tight, and he could hear ebon-dark surf breaking on sand red as blood. “I was there, Jace, I saw – ” His voice broke, and so did Jace’s expression; fragmented with pained realisation, as if he heard the words before Simon could shape them. “I saw Hodge h-hand you over, and I couldn’t – I was _there_ , and I couldn’t stop it, I _saw_ – ”

   “Simon,” Jace whispered, an echo of Simon’s remembered agony in his eyes, “oh, _eromenos_ , ssh,” and he drew Simon close, brow to brow, and Simon’s shoulders were shaking, his breath catching in his throat, unable to forget a single sun-seared second of that nightmare, of watching Jace hang like a corpse in Valentine’s arms, the Portal’s light on his face –

   While Simon screamed and screamed and screamed –

   “ _Eromenos_ , it’s all right,” Jace whispered, and Simon shivered, remembering something else – remembered the meaning of that word, _beloved,_ and let it tug him back from the soul-screaming fire to the present, to here and now in Jace’s arms. “It’s all right. He gave me to my father, Simon.”

   _What?_

   Jace must have seen the confusion in Simon’s eyes. Gently, his thumb brushed the bandage on Simon’s cheek. “He’s not dead,” Jace said softly, and his face – Simon pulled away to get a better look, because the blond’s expression was oil and water, venom and honey, velvet studded with glass shards. “My father isn’t dead, Simon. I thought he was, but he wasn’t. Valentine never killed him. _It’s all been a mistake._ ”

   Simon’s head spun. Inanely, he thought _But we killed his killers,_ as if that was irrefutable proof, as if that meant that Michael Wayland _had_ to be dead. “Is he here?” he asked. Numbly, he twisted Simiel into its sheathed form and put it away, fastening it into his cuff, the motion automatic. “Did Valentine kidnap him, too?”

   Jace opened his mouth to answer – and was cut off. A gunshot roared in the hallway, and Simon whipped around, panic and rage exploding red and black behind his eyes.

   _“Clary!”_

    He did not remember moving. He had run to Jace without thinking; now he ran to Clary the same way. And still he was only halfway to the door when it opened.

   It was Valentine. His hair shone like the sword at his waist, and he was wiping his hands with a handkerchief, so that for a moment Simon thought of Hodge. But the stain on Valentine’s hand was red, not black, and the gunshot was still echoing in Simon’s ears and _no, no, no._

_No!_

   Valentine’s eyebrows rose when he spotted Simon. Simon knew that he should move, should attack or run, but he was...but Clary...

   The world was fracturing around him like brittle glass, cold and airless, and he couldn’t breathe.

   “Symeon,” Valentine said softly. Carefully, as if Simon were an animal he didn’t wish to startle, he closed the door behind him. His eyes were dark – black, at a glance – and they never left Simon. “I have been waiting a long time to meet you.”

   “Father?”

   Jace’s voice. Golden, confident Jace, who knew himself as he knew his blades – Jace, suddenly uncertain; suddenly confused, and Simon was reeling, still, caught in a maelstrom and trying, trying to stay on his feet, trying to think, to understand, and Jace’s voice fell into the whirlpool in Simon’s head like a cannonball. “His name is Simon.”

   _Clary – Jace –_

_**Father** –_

   “No,” Valentine said, “it is not.” He smiled, and the curve of his lips was an earthquake through the world, tearing everything apart. “I would know. I am his father too.”

* * *

 

 

NOTES

 _Niishté zir_ – I am coming.

 _Gi niis i teloc, Valentine._ _Parmgi._ – Your death is here, Valentine. Run.

 _Teloc i niis, Valentine! Carma sa baeovib-restil gi-doalim!_ – Death is here, Valentine! Come out and greet it if you dare!

 _Symeon_ is pronounced Sim-ee-on; ‘Sim’ like the computer games. Whereas _Simon_ is ‘Sye-mon’. (Yes, I find it somewhat ironic that their phonetic spellings are switched around to their actual ones). They are NOT pronounced the same, which is how Jace knows that Valentine is calling Simon something different!


	31. Interlude: Poppet

   Alec drifted towards the waking world like a bubble rising to the surface of a lake – a dark lake, but cool and calm, with beams of moonlight in it to keep the nightmares away.

   When the bubble popped – sluggishly, in slow, heavy motion – Alec opened his eyes.

   It was an effort. His whole body felt heavy, as if his bones had been replaced with lead and rock; even his eyelids seemed weighted, opening reluctantly.

   But when they did, he noticed three things.

   First: Jace was awake and well.

   Alec had felt his _parabatai_ ’s pain, felt him slip out of consciousness in a tangled, panic-inducing mess that had blurred horribly with the pain of Alec’s injuries. He had caught a glimpse of Hodge’s raised hand through Jace’s eyes, and then Jace had been – not dead, not truly gone, but gone beyond Alec’s reach, gone enough to scar Alec for a lifetime. But now, though Jace was too far away for them to speak mind to mind, Alec could feel that his _parabatai_ was awake again, and not in pain.

   That was an unspeakable relief.

   Second: Jace was not here.

   That was not a relief.

   Third: Jace was not here, but someone else was. Alec could hear them breathing.

   He turned his head a little on the pillow, to look.

   He blinked, not sure if his vision was playing tricks on him. There was someone fast asleep on the cot next to Alec’s, and the Shadowhunter recognised him instantly, without having to sieve his memory for his name: it was Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn.

   Brooklyn... Something about that nagged at Alec’s memory, but he couldn’t remember what. Something about how warlocks carved out territories like big cats – something about how or why they did it...

   But he was too tired, and too distracted, to wonder about it. His eyes wandered over Magnus instead; smiling a little at the way some of the black spikes of the warlock’s hair were crushed between his head and the pillow, and the startling but refreshing lack of make-up. It was kind of adorable – and Magnus was much less intimidating like this, wearing a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt that would have matched a dozen similar outfits in Alec’s own closet. All the glitter and dress-up had made Alec squirm a little, even as he was a little bit jealous that anyone could be so brave. _Not_ that he wanted to start wearing sparkly eyeshadow, but to care so little for what other people thought that you could do whatever you wanted? It seemed a force as wild and dangerous and beautiful as magic.

   But Magnus looked pale, too; drawn and tired, sprawled out on the bed as if he’d collapsed onto it, and Alec frowned. He resolved to be quiet and let the warlock sleep, rather than ask him what he was doing at the Institute.

   Then he recognised the gleam of silver around Magnus’ neck, and it all came rushing back.

   The pain, the hurt, the darkness. The voices. The jaguars fighting the cold inside him... Alec shuddered. How much had been real, and how much had he hallucinated? Not the one who’d healed him, apparently. He remembered the lamen hanging above his head as someone – Magnus – bent over him, remembered losing himself in the graceful knot of sigils and symbols, feeling them weave together like rose vines in his head, a wall of thorns holding the horror at bay.

   Alec tilted his head, trying to read the crest of hieroglyphic symbols on Magnus’ lamen, but something else caught his eye, distracting him.

   He sat up carefully, prepared for pain, and grit his teeth as it hissed across his chest in thin, sharp lines. The blanket fell to his hips, but his torso had been bound up in bandages and the wounds were out of sight; a spill of green beads and a flash of gold tumbled down over his collarbone, dislodged by his movement.

   Gingerly, he ran his fingertips along one of the fault lines he could feel under the wrappings. It ached dully, but not nearly as much as he’d feared, and he examined his strange necklace, holding the golden oak leaf pendant in his palm. The power in it made his teeth hum, and he dropped it quickly, his heart pounding. _A witch’s ladder._

   The leaf-charm swung over his heart, quiescent. Unable to tell if the ladder’s spell was still in effect – it might be the only thing holding him in one piece – Alec left it alone and returned his attention to the object which had originally stolen it.

   The small table between his bed and Magnus’ was full of clutter; scattered herbs, some shredded and others singed; candle drippings; a handful of bejewelled steel rings piled haphazardly to one side. But at the centre of the mess, carefully protected by a clear space, was a crystal figurine the size of a small doll, resting on a folded blue cloth.

   Wary of hurting himself, Alec leaned closer, craning his head to see. Could he reach...? Yes, just; he stretched and picked up the little object, settling back against the bed’s headboard as he inspected it, rubbing absently at his chest.

   Alec recognised what he’d found instantly, his mind conjuring up an illustration from one of the texts Hodge didn’t know he’d read. It was a poppet, but the strangest one Alec had ever heard of: usually they were made of cloth, but this one was a little statue of glass, as smooth and unfaceted as a seraph blade. It was very faintly tinted pink, and as perfectly androgynous as an artist’s mannequin, except that it was all one piece instead of having positionable joints.

   Holding it carefully so as not to damage it – or drop it on anything but the blanket – Alec peered more closely at it. Tiny lines on the hands and feet indicated fingers and toes, and small gemstones had been set into the glass – a chip of amber on the back of the left hand; amethyst on the right. The sole of the left foot sported a piece of bloodstone, and the right foot was decorated with a bit of ruby or garnet – Alec couldn’t tell the difference. An inverted triangle of tiger’s-eye shimmered on the statue’s forehead, the stone smaller than the nail of Alec’s little finger.

   He turned the statue over in his hands, then turned it back. He didn’t know much about the magical properties of gemstones – that information was rarely useful for a Shadowhunter; it was an alchemist’s business – but he had no difficultly cataloguing the herbs stuffed inside the poppet’s hollow chest: he’d been up all night studying herbology just two days ago. Clove was for protection, eucalyptus for purification, bay and oak leaves for healing. Myrrh – myrrh both purified and healed, like eucalyptus, but it was used for protection, too – protection, and exorcisms.

_A_ _thousand thousand things burrowing into his marrow, gnawing through his bones, cancerous little ticks and worms, get them OUT OF ME –_

   Alec took a deep breath, shuddering at the flash of memory. Yes. He rubbed his thumb over the poppet’s chest, feeling the raised imperfections in the glass – seven opaque lines that matched the trenches Abbadon had carved into him. A purifying exorcism. That was exactly what he needed.

   Then he frowned. Was that _catnip?_

   Puzzled, he held the poppet closer to his face. Catnip had healing properties, true, but it was more often used in...

   His pulse stuttered with embarrassed realisation. Love spells. Catnip was almost exclusively used in _love spells_.

   _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he told himself. _It’s a healing herb, too. That’s what it’s here for. It has absolutely nothing to do with –_

   He swallowed. The corners of his lips kept trying to pull up: firmly, he refused to let them, and very carefully put the poppet back down on the table, thinking hard. It was impossible to manufacture love; witches could bottle lust and obsession, but real love spells only worked by encouraging feelings that were already present.

   What did that mean? Was Magnus making some kind of declaration? Or was he trying to nudge Alec into...what?

   A sound jolted him out of his thoughts, and he looked up, grateful for the interruption. “Izzy!”

   “Ssh!” Standing in the doorway, she pressed her finger to her lips. “You’ll wake Magnus,” she said softly, but her smile stretched wide and relieved across her face, and she hurried over to the bed. “I’m so glad you’re _okay_ ,” she said fervently – and then slapped him across the face.

 _“Ow,”_ Alec hissed, clutching his ringing cheek. His sister was a born Shadowhunter, and _strong_. And she hadn’t held back. “What was that for?”

   “For nearly getting yourself killed!” Before Alec could protest the unfairness of this, she flung one arm around him and hugged him carefully. Gingerly, Alec hugged her back, careful of his wounds.

   “I’m fine,” he assured her. Then, because it was the most important thing; “Where’s Jace?”

   Pulling away from him, Izzy hugged the thing she was holding tighter to her chest. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “He...I can’t find him. Or Hodge. And Simon and Clary are gone too. They all vanished hours ago, before Magnus got here.”

   Alec chilled. “Simon was right,” he whispered.

   “What?”

   Alec hardened his resolve and raised his voice. “Simon. He was right about Hodge.” The words were bitter as parsley on his tongue, so he spoke as quickly as he could, recounting what he had glimpsed through the _parabatai_ bond as briefly as possible.

   _Jace’s disbelief and betrayal and fear... Hodge’s hand raised against him..._

   “But why would Hodge do that?” Isabelle sat stunned, her eyes staring at nothing. “It – it’s _Hodge_.”

   Alec’s mind was racing, producing and discarding a dozen different explanations in heartbeats. “He must be in league with Valentine. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.” But he knew that wasn’t what his sister meant. Alec remembered the day he’d discovered the real reason they lived in New York – the day he’d discovered that his parents had stood beside the worst traitor their people had ever known, and murdered loyal Shadowhunters in his name. They had _killed Shadowhunters_ , and learning that – it had been as though the earth he walked on had turned abruptly to mist beneath his feet.

   That was Isabelle meant. That confusion, and disbelief, and the sense of being betrayed. Some vital innocence, broken.

   Visibly steeling herself, Isabelle exhaled. Alec glimpsed flint in her eyes. “Jace can behead a Du’sien demon from fifty feet with a cork-screw and a rubber band,” she said, almost to herself. Alec knew she would not ask him if he could find Jace: she knew that he couldn’t. The _parabatai_ bond let him know that Jace was all right, but they weren’t close enough for Alec to physically locate him. Not without getting up and walking around the city until the bond tugged at him...and he was in no state to get up out of bed. “He’ll be fine.”

   _But this isn’t a Du’sien demon!_ Alec wanted to yell at her. _This is_ Valentine _!_ But she already knew that. Yelling wouldn’t help, even if dread and terror and worry stabbed into Alec like icicles. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood, clinging to the sense of his _parabatai_ awake and alive and not in pain.

   It was not as reassuring as he wished it would be.

   Desperately searching for a distraction, Alec’s eyes fell on the warlock. “Why is _he_ here?” he asked quietly.

   “He healed you,” Isabelle said simply.

   “I _know_ that,” Alec said impatiently. “I meant – _why?_ And how did he know to come?” He blinked as he finally got a good look at Izzy’s burden. “And what are you doing with Fenrir?”

   Izzy held the old stuffed wolf tighter, a defiant expression on her face. “He was in the attic,” she muttered.

   “I know that, mother put him up there when I was _five_. Why do _you_ have him?”

   Izzy looked down at the toy and didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. The look on her face – unexpectedly, unfamiliarly fragile – was answer enough.

   “You didn’t think I was going to wake up,” Alec whispered, stunned.

   “No!” Isabelle’s head jerked up instantly. “No, that’s not it. By the time I went and got him Magnus was sure you were going to be okay.” She swallowed. “But then – then Magnus was tired, and he fell asleep – ” She nodded over at where the warlock was passed out on the bed, “ – and y-you were still out cold, and I just...” She hugged Fenrir tightly. “No one else was here, okay?” she muttered.

   “Okay,” Alec said softly, his throat tight. He took a deep breath. “So. Bane?”

   “I called him. By the Angel, Alec, he was _incredible_ – you should have seen it! I mean, it was awful, but incredible too – I’ve never seen magic like that – ”

   Alec listened with growing disbelief as Isabelle recounted the hours she and Magnus had spent fighting for his life. Literally fighting: he found himself sick with retroactive fear as she described the horde of demons she had been responsible for keeping away from him.

   “Even Jace has never fought so many at once,” she said proudly.

   _And you did it without me watching your back._ The nightmares from that fact were going to be worse than the ones inspired by the venom’s hallucinations, Alec knew it. He could feel the slow, icy curl of horror in the back of his mind already, a thousand times worse than the poison had been. “You could have died,” he whispered.

   Isabelle’s expression faltered, then softened. Tucking Fenrir under one arm, she curled her fingers over Alec’s hand. “It was my turn to keep you safe,” she said simply. Gently. “You do so much for me, Alec. I’m glad I finally got to do something for you.” Her gaze flicked to Magnus. “Although he did more,” she allowed, a glint of mischief in her eyes.

   Alec was baffled. “What?” he asked warily.

   She grinned at him. “Do you know, he ground an alicorn into sand to make your poppet? There’s a little bit of your blood in the glass, too. That’s why it’s pink.”

_“Izzy.”_

   Her grin grew wider. “Didn’t you wonder why he gave Clary that stone?”

   The abrupt change of topic left him dizzy. “I spend more time wondering how your brain works,” he told her.

   “He could have asked to see Simon,” Izzy said. “Or done some spell to find Clary’s house. But he didn’t. Because he wanted to see you.” She stood up from the bed while he was still staring at her. “You should go back to sleep,” she said sweetly. “But when you’re both awake...you should talk.”

   She left then, and Alec... Alec tried not to stare at the man sleeping in the other bed. Tried not to think of the catnip, or how much effort it must have taken to make such a strange, exquisite poppet.

   Gingerly, he curled up on his side, facing Magnus. His hand closed around the gold oak leaf hanging from his neck, and he closed his eyes.

   It took him longer than it should have to sleep.

*

   When he woke again, Magnus was gone.

   For a moment, disappointment was a knife between his ribs, and Alec lay still, struggling with himself. Well, he had known that Izzy was probably wrong. He couldn’t imagine what someone as brave and confident as Magnus could possibly see in someone like _him_ , anyway. He wasn’t beautiful like Jace, or strong like Izzy. He was just...

   Taking a deep breath to dull the unreasonable hurt, he sat up, surprised when there was barely any pain. “Izzy?” he called, hoping she was nearby. He wondered if he could get up out of bed, with or without her help. He wondered if Jace was all right.

   Only then did he see that the bedside table had been cleared. The general mess was gone, swept away, leaving only the glass poppet, resting on a blue cloth. It was weighting down a slip of paper.

   Stretching, Alec managed to snag it free. _Don’t break this for two weeks,_ Magnus had written, in cursive so ridiculously flamboyant that Alec couldn’t help but grin at it. _And call me._

   Alec traced the numbers with his fingertip lightly, as if they might break apart under his touch.

   “Alec?” Izzy appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray. “Is everything all right?”

   Alec curled his fingers around the paper. “Yes,” he said, surprised at the smile he found on his lips. “Everything’s fine.”

* * *

 

 NOTES

An alicorn is the proper term for a unicorn’s horn.

 


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO AGAIN, ALL MY LOVELY READERS! I am sorry this chapter took so long. If you haven't been following my tumblr, then you missed that I've been abroad, and the goddess that is my beta Cassie has been ill, drowning in schoolwork, AND started a whole new job. Not to mention her laptop trying to stage a mutiny on her. 
> 
> Also, this was a tough chapter to write. You will understand why, I imagine.
> 
> But last night Cassie did a HEROICALLY HEROIC THING and got the WHOLE CHAPTER EDITED FOR YOU GUYS! 8D And since it's so late, I'm posting it even though it's not a Tuesday. (Do not expect the next chapter on Tuesday. That, too, is proving to be a hard chapter to write. We're going to toss out the posting schedule now. WE ARE OFF THE MAP. Okay? Awesome).
> 
> I'd say I hope you guys enjoy this, but I know you won't. OH WELL. YOUR OWN FAULT FOR GETTING SUCKED IN THIS FAR. MWAH HA HA!

_A white, bloodstained_ armaskō _cuff._

_A seraph blade._

_A gunshot._

   “That’s not true,” Jace said behind him. Simon’s head was ringing as if he’d been struck; he moved clumsily back to where Jace stood by the window and Jace – Jace was bleached white. He looked as though he’d been stabbed, staring at Valentine as if at a black hole, at the end of the world – “There’s been a mistake. It can’t possibly be true.”

   “It’s true,” Simon said dully. _Clary_. He was struggling to drag himself into the present, to focus on, on this, on Valentine and Jace but – but the gunshot, _Clary_ , and he couldn’t – “But it’s not like it matters. It’s just – ”

   Jace jerked away from him, and the sudden movement made Simon look at him – and he caught the full brunt of Jace’s sickened horror. _“You knew?”_

   Simon stared at him, confused. “Why does it matter?” he whispered, because the look on Jace’s face – if Jace had taken up Simiel and thrust it through Simon’s heart it couldn’t have hurt as much as that disgusted despair, and was this a Shadowhunter thing, did the children pay for the sins of the parents in Idris? Was Simon tainted by his bloodline in Jace’s eyes?

   Jace made a wordless sound and turned away from him, and Simon remembered Jace’s fist in his gut in the training room, the way it had ripped his air away.

   This was worse. The despairing horror in Jace’s eyes tore the air out of the entire _world._

   Simon struggled to make sense of it, to take hold of the puzzle pieces and make them fit together – but the storm in his head caught hold of them and snatched them away, out of reach, flying and spinning and shattering apart. He couldn’t _think_ – not with Clary hurt, maybe bleeding out, maybe dead somewhere behind that closed door – Jace would just have to wait. He turned to look at Valentine instead, and felt sickened himself by the cold interest in the man’s eyes. “What did you do to Clary?”

   Valentine raised one elegant eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

   Black wings. Red waves. “The girl outside the door,” Simon said, very softly. “What did you do to her?”

    Understanding dawned, and the interest sharpened, cool and calculating. “Ah, the girl with the gun.” His eyes were dark blades, wholly focussed on Simon as he feigned unconcern. “Her shot missed, so I let her live. She is only unconscious, Symeon, you need not worry.” He was still holding the handkerchief; his gaze moved to Jace as he put it in his pocket. “I would think you ought to be more concerned about your brother.”

   Was Valentine telling the truth about Clary? Maybe. There had been blood on his hands, but the sword hanging from Valentine’s belt – Simon’s eyes glanced to it – was unsheathed and clean, shining. The only way to check would mean getting past Valentine to the door – getting out, and getting Jace out with him –

   Only then, finally, did he process the rest of Valentine’s words. “My – what the hell are you – ”

   _Too. I am his father **too**. _

   Simon froze. “What?” he whispered.

   He had not registered that part before. With his ears still ringing from the gunshot, with his fear for Clary riding him like a loa, Simon had heard only what he expected to hear. He had heard Valentine declaring himself Simon’s father and had not heard, had not understood the reason for Jace’s –

   Oh. God. _Jace._

   “Jace.” Simon reached for him, grabbed him, curled bloody fingers over Jace’s wrist, and Jace started, turned back to him. His gold eyes looked right through Simon, and Simon beat back a flurry of panic. “ _Jace_. It’s not true, he’s _lying_. This is Valentine, he’s – he’s my – but he’s _not yours_. You’re a Wayland, you’re Michael Wayland’s son – ”

   “He is _not_.” Valentine’s voice sliced between them and both boys flinched at the sudden leashed rage in it; Simon remembered how Valentine had lashed out at Hodge, _you shall not speak of Jace._ “Do you truly believe a Shadowhunter like Janim could come from a coward like Michael? A man who would rather flee than stand by his friends could never sire as gifted a warrior as your brother.”

   “ _You_ had the chance to say ‘Luke, I am your father’, and you didn’t take it, _you’re_ clearlynot related to _me_ ,” Simon snapped, his heart hammering against his ribcage like a hail of bullets. “No, wait, hang on, maybe that would have been too confusing, since there is actually a Luke you fucked over – ”

   And Valentine’s words caught up with him.

   And the world spun beneath his feet.

   “Janim?” he whispered. He hadn’t looked away from Jace; his hand was still holding Jace’s wrist like a drowning man clutching a rope. A lifeline to save him from drowning, but Simon – Simon could feel the waves closing over his head. “You – your name is Jace.”

   It came out a plea.

   Jace shook his head slowly. “It’s my nickname. It’s – my initials – ” His voice broke. “J.C.”

   J.C. “Janim Christopher,” Simon breathed, and the words were razors, slicing his throat, his tongue, bleeding – “The box. The – the fucking _box_.”

   The box from his mom’s room. When the Silent Brothers had gone through his head he’d seen it again, but it wasn’t – it wasn’t a hidden memory, wasn’t from behind the block in his mind, so he’d thought – thought that it meant nothing – thought it was just something of his mundane father’s –

   _No._

   “How did you – what box?” For the first time, confusion overtook the awful realisation on Jace’s face.

   “My mom, she has this box – there’s a lock of hair in it, she takes it out and cries over it a few times a year, when she thinks I’m asleep – ” He was speaking too quickly, the words spilling from his lips like a torrent of blood. “It has JC carved on the lid... But...”

   _But it can’t be._ _It_ can’t be.

He took a deep breath. “No. This is insane. _No._ ” He tightened his hold on Jace, refusing – refusing to believe, because believing would mean letting go – and turned to look at Valentine. “Jace is a Wayland. Everyone knows it – the Lightwoods – and he has the Wayland ring. _You’re lying._ ”

   Of course he was lying. _Of course he was._ That was what villains _did_ , they lied, they lied and lied –

   Valentine walked further into the room, calmly taking a seat at the table. Jace was trembling under Simon’s fingers, so minutely that Simon almost didn’t notice – and then wondered how he’d missed it.

   “He’s lying,” he repeated softly, begging Jace to believe him. “Jace, come on – Michael Wayland, the one who gave you everything you wanted, remember? Books and weapons and horses, a – a falcon, you told me that, and music lessons, he made you learn the piano – ” Desperation beat steel wings in his chest, a hummingbird slashing his insides to ribbons as Jace’s eyes grew more and more shadowed, more pained, as if the razors on Simon’s tongue were cutting Jace to pieces. “Why would you believe that Valentine is your dad, even for one second? You know, you _remember –_ ”

   “Oh, Janim remembers all of it,” Valentine said easily. “Don’t you, son?” He poured himself a glass of wine from a crystal decanter. The light made the crystal sparkle. “That is how he knows the truth.” He raised his glass. “The Lightwoods were not worthy of raising my son,” he commented, as though they were all at a dinner party and not – not – “But I had nowhere else to send him, and I knew he would not let them ruin him.” He brought the wine to his lips, and flicked his dark eyes towards Simon. “I was sure that Jocelyn would ruin _you_ ,” he said, smiling again as he took in the blood on Simon’s clothes with – with what might well have been fucked-up fatherly pride, oh God, all grim pleasure, holy fucking _Christ_ – “But I should have known that she would surprise me. She has always delighted in doing so.”

   He set his drink down. “As for the ring – ” He laughed softly. “Funny, isn’t it, how an M worn upside down resembles a W? Of course, if you’d bothered to think about it, you’d probably have thought it a little strange that the symbol of the Wayland family would be a falling star. But not at all strange that it would be the symbol of the Morgensterns.”

   “What’s he talking about?” Simon could hardly find the breath to speak. “Jace?”

   Jace’s voice was numb. “Morgenstern means ‘morning star’.”

   Morning star. Simon thought of Neil Gaiman’s comic and felt a chill run down his spine. _Not morning star. Morningstar._ “Lucifer,” he whispered. His free hand went to his pocket. “But – someone must have noticed. Someone would have _known_. They – ” Oh, God, Luke had known it was the Morgenstern ring. _‘I didn’t know she’d kept this,_ ’; he’d meant _Jocelyn_ , because Jocelyn would have, once, had a Morgenstern ring too – it all fell into place, so easily, so obvious; Luke had wanted him to follow the blood because he’d assumed the blood was Jace’s, because the ring couldn’t be, the ring had to have been Jocelyn’s or Simon’s –

   Except that it _was_ Jace’s ring.

   “No. _No_. This is _bullshit._ ” _It has to be. It has to be it has to be it has to be._ “Why the hell did no one notice? Somebody would have noticed he was wearing the wrong damn ring!”

   “I almost never wore it,” Jace said quietly. His voice took Simon by surprise. “The Lightwoods opened their home to me; it would have been rude to cling to my past. As if I didn’t want to be with them, as if they weren’t good enough.” He took a deep breath. “Only sometimes. On a whim. More – more often since I met you.” His voice lowered to a mere breath above a whisper, so that Simon almost missed what he said next. “I kept imagining it on your finger instead of mine.”

   It should have made his heart soar. It should have made him laugh. It should even have made him worry, because this was too fast, too intense, to be healthy for either of them.

   Instead Simon clenched his eyes shut and struggled against the sob rising hard and fast in his throat. “He’s lying,” because it had to be a lie, _it had to be_. Jace couldn’t be his, his _brother_ , he wouldn’t – he couldn’t feel like this, _they_ couldn’t feel like this if it were true. Jace wouldn’t be the one he needed, his wouldn’t be the name pyrographed on Simon’s bones if they were brothers instead, instead of –

   _This is how you take the ocean out of the blood_ –

   But if it was the same blood running through both their veins –

   The ocean gave life but it held secrets, too, down in the dark – secrets with teeth –

   “He’s not,” Jace whispered, and his face – it was awful; Simon didn’t know how to look at it, look at _him_ , with Valentine playing the voyeur, watching them like a play. “I should have realised you had to be a Morgenstern – but I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t – ” He cut himself off and stared down at the floor, and Simon was bleeding, bleeding because Jace had looked away from him, broken their gaze, broken _Simon_ –

_No. No, you can’t, don’t do this, don’t believe him – please, please, I’ll do anything, just don’t believe him –_

   “Jace did not know his true heritage, Symeon. Much as – ”

   _“My name is not Symeon!”_ Simon shouted, unable to bear it one second longer.

   Valentine calmly set his glass back down on the table. He was left-handed, Simon noticed with a sick pang. Just like Jace. “Symeon Vangelis Morgenstern.” Valentine savoured each word. “Did you think that it was only her surname that your mother changed?”

   Simon had no response to that. _Fray – Fairchild._

_Simon – Symeon._

   “As I was saying,” Valentine continued. “As you did not know your true name until recently, so was your brother unaware of his. You shouldn’t blame him for it. Until today he truly believed himself a Wayland.”

   “How?” Simon asked harshly. “How is that possible?”

   _Look at me,_ he begged Jace silently, his eyes burning, _look at me look at me look at me._ But Jace didn’t.

   He looked so lost.

   “It is simple, really,” Valentine said. “The story you heard – you have been told the story of the Uprising by now, I’m sure?”

   “Get on with it,” Simon said coldly.

   Valentine dipped his head in mocking acknowledgement. “The story you will have heard is true in some of its parts, but not in others. The fact is that Michael Wayland was killed during the Uprising, and I assumed his name and place when I fled the Glass City with my son.” He shrugged, elegantly graceful. “It was easy enough; Wayland had no real relations, and his closest friends, the Lightwoods, were in exile. He himself would have been in disgrace for his part in the Uprising, so I lived that disgraced life, quietly enough, alone with Janim on the Waylands’ estate. I read my books. I raised my son. And I bided my time.”

   He ran his fingertip over the rim of his glass, deep in thought. “Ten years on, I received a letter. The writer of the letter indicated that he knew my true identity, and if I were not prepared to take certain steps, he would reveal it. I did not know who the letter was from, but it did not matter. I was not prepared to give the writer of it what he wanted. Besides, I knew my safety was compromised, and would remain so unless he thought me dead, beyond his reach. I staged my death a second time, with the help of Blackwell and Pangborn, and for Jace’s own safety made sure that my son would be sent here, to the protection of the Lightwoods.”

   _Oh, please._ But there was only one real question that seemed important, more important than asking if Valentine truly believed Simon would fall for that pathetic mess of clichés.

   “You had three sons.” It was his voice, Simon’s voice, but it seemed to come from somewhere very far away, or maybe very deep: maybe from the bottom of the chasm running through his soul. “Mom had me. You had Janim. What happened to Jonathan?”

   “Jonathan?” Jace asked, his voice hoarse.

   Simon swallowed hard. “Valentine Morgenstern had three sons,” he repeated roughly, without looking away from the Shadowhunter Hitler. “Jonathan was your – ” No. _No!_ “ – was _Janim’s_ twin.”

   “I have a twin?” Jace’s voice broke on the final word, as if he had completely ignored Simon’s emphasis, as if he _believed_ –

   Valentine’s expression darkened – not with anger, but with a hard, bleak sorrow that Simon didn’t buy for a second. “He burned,” he said quietly, his gaze far away.

   “In the fire _you set!”_ Simon shouted, and it was too much, it was too fucking much, Clary and Jace-Janim and this, this – Simiel blazed up on his arm to match the fires in his head, the demonfire that had killed his brother – a toddler, screaming in the flames – _“You killed him_ , just like you killed my grandparents – !”

   Valentine rose from his chair so violently that his chair crashed over onto the floor, an expression of murderous rage sweeping over his regal face and Simon didn’t care, fucking _welcomed_ it, bracing his stance and baring his teeth in a vicious snarl that rumbled up out of the pit behind his eyes, _fucking BRING IT_ –

   “Father, don’t!” Jace cried, trying to move between them as Valentine moved towards Simon, but the man snapped, “You will stay out of this, Janim,” and Jace quailed and Simon’s rage _exploded_ to see anyone, anything, that could make Jace flinch like that. He let go of Jace’s arm and stepped in front of him, black wings spreading wide in his head, hiding Jace from sight as he shoved up his sleeve and tore Simiel from its setting –

   And Valentine caught his wrist in an iron grip and Simon cried out, the battle-trance splintering under the pain.

   “Father!”

   “Hush, Janim, this is between your brother and I.” There was a hunger in Valentine’s eyes, Simon saw, dark and greedy and laughing; it made Simon’s gorge rise. He lashed out with his other fist but Valentine caught that too, effortlessly, and Simon struggled not to make a sound, not to panic even as it felt that his fingers were being crushed, the bones in his wrist ground to powder as Valentine tugged him closer, drew their heads together as if for a kiss –

   “Say its name, Symeon,” he breathed, hunger and excitement turning his dark eyes to volcanic obsidian and he was too close, this was wrong on some other, deeper level, something that turned Simon’s bones to water and made him shudder, shake, want to run, “Draw your blade.”

   “Simiel,” Simon whispered helplessly, and the seraph sword snapped out in a flare of silver and Valentine’s eyes widened, his whole face lit up with the starlight of the blade. He was holding Simon’s wrist angled carefully; Simiel didn’t touch him, but there was genuine shock in his face for a moment.

   It rapidly dissolved into amusement. “Simiel?” Valentine echoed, and beside them Jace flinched again, guilt and hurt and confusion and Simon could only see him out of the corner of his eye, couldn’t look away from Valentine. Who laughed, low and rich. “Oh, that is too perfect! Who chose its name, Symeon? You?”

   Simon didn’t answer. Couldn’t. It was an _armask_ _ō_ blade – if he said Jace –

   But Valentine, seeing that he didn’t mean to answer, let go of Simon’s fist and – and grasped the sleeve of Simon’s jacket, pushing it up roughly; he must have seen Simon draw it, and Simon’s heart screamed in his throat but it was too late.

   It was not a vambrace that he was wearing under his coat; he had not held his seraph blade holstered in a vambrace or gauntlet. Simiel’s light flashed and sparkled on the crystal stars clearly: it was his _armask_ _ō_ cuff.

   The cuff marked with the Morgenstern stars.

*

   The silence spun out around them like a net of glass. One move – one breath – and it would shatter and cut them all to pieces.

   Except, perhaps, Valentine. Simon could see right into his father’s face and there was surprise there, yes – but no shock. No horror. He hadn’t expected the _armask_ _ō_ cuff, maybe, but what it meant – what it had to mean – _that_ did not take him by surprise.

   “Oh, boys,” he murmured. “What _have_ you done?” His voice was so soft, and something in Simon flinched away from the sound of it, shrinking in on himself in something that tasted awfully like shame.

   He had never thought he could be ashamed of – of caring for someone, but the edge of velvet laughter in his father’s voice – it made Simon feel sick. Sick, and small, and helpless.

   He had never wanted his mom so badly in his life.

 _‘_ _This was my mother’s,’_ Jace had said when he gave Simon the cuff. _‘My father gave it to her.’_ And Valentine clearly recognised it – he brushed his thumb over one of the stars, the faintest curve to his lips, and Simon –

   Simon wanted to scream, wanted to cry. _It was mom’s._ Mom’s. He was wearing – it was –

   Oh, God –

   “Father – ” Jace must have been feeling the same breaking, the same sick tragedy tearing at his chest, because his voice was shaken, and shaking, “Please – I can explain – we didn’t _know –_ ”

   But Valentine had, Simon thought despairingly. He’d called Jace, called Jace Simon’s _catamite_ – he’d known before this. Had Hodge been the one to tell him – had he mentioned it when he first contacted Valentine about the Cup?

   Probably. How else could he have known?

   No. _No._

   _NO!_

   “Don’t apologise, Jace,” he said, his voice shaking – but not with anguish, like his _erastes_ ’. With _rage._ “Don’t ever apologise. He’s a liar and a murderer – don’t _ever_ apologise to _him!”_

    In a flash Valentine had released Simon’s left hand and grasped his chin instead, wrenching his head up. Simon clenched his jaw against the pain and met Valentine’s eyes defiantly. It was like staring at black ice on a winter road – the killing ice, freezing and deadly, and there was a chilling, ruthless satisfaction looking back at Simon. A cold approval.

   Like a man looking at a new weapon, and pleased with what he saw.

   At that thought, Simon’s anger-born strength drained away like water, leaving nothing behind but dirty, sludgy fear.

_‘I do not know what he did to you, Simon. But I am sorry for it.’_

   In that moment, Simon knew: Hodge had been right. Valentine had done something to him. He didn’t know what, or why, or how – but Valentine had reached inside him, probably when he was a baby, and twisted something, something vital and human. What other explanation was there for the Enochian and the dark laughter in his head, the black wings and the vicious, glorious rage? What else could explain a perfectly average seventeen year old being able, after barely a week, to kill demons and execute a man without compunction? Why else would a man like Valentine be so proud of a son raised as a mundane?

   Unless he had done something to that son to forge him into a weapon. Unless it had worked.

   _What did you do to me?_ The words glowed green and sick, so heavy and horrifying that Simon couldn’t even begin to shape them aloud. But his soul screamed them.

   _WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?_

   “You should not talk to your father that way, Symeon,” Valentine said softly. “You will show me respect.”

   “I don’t respect murderers,” Simon spat, shakily.

   Valentine’s eyebrows rose, a mocking amusement coming into his eyes. “Really? Then you were not responsible for the two corpses I passed on my way here?”

   _Only one,_ Simon nearly hurled at him, but it occurred to him that Valentine might change his mind about killing Clary if he knew that she had killed one of his men.

   If he hadn’t killed her already, and lied about it.

   Simon bit his tongue and said nothing, letting the blood on his clothes speak for itself.

   Valentine smirked. “In any case,” he said softly, satisfied, “I am no murderer. The fire that killed Jonathan was an accident – a tragic accident. But I did not set it. I would never allow any harm to come to a child of mine.”

   That was so patently untrue that Simon almost laughed, bitter and vicious. “We’re not your children,” he spat, hating, hating Valentine and hating himself for trembling, for being afraid with his throat pulled taut under Valentine’s grip. “Not both of us. And I can prove it.”

   He jerked his knee up, but Valentine swayed backwards before the hit could connect, a patronising smile like calligraphy on his mouth as he released Simon and held up his hands in surrender.

   He did not look concerned.

   Simon did not allow that to worry him: he turned to Jace, and oh, it was cruel – Simon had thought that Alec looked broken, when he discovered Simiel, but Jace, Jace –

   Simon had no words for the pain in those gold eyes, the despair and the hate and the confusion, the hurt and the innocent bewilderment – he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around Jace and hide him, magic him and Clary far, far away from here, somewhere _safe_ , somewhere they had never heard of Valentine or Shadowhunters or demons at all –

   Instead, he swallowed hard and fumbled with the ring on his hand. “This was my mom’s,” he told Jace, ignoring Valentine, ignoring the sick echo of Jace’s words to him, _this was my mother’s._ “There’s no way to tell whether your ring is the Morgenstern one or not,” because he didn’t trust anything Valentine said and Luke could have been wrong, maybe, _please let him be wrong,_ “but this,” he pulled it off his finger at last, “is the Fairchild ring.”

   Jace shook his head slowly. “Don’t, Simon,” he said quietly, and his voice was enough to break Simon’s heart.

   But Simon ignored him, spoke over him frantically. “If it fits you then – but it _won’t_ , so just try it on and then we’ll know, for sure – ”

   “Simon...”

   “ _Please_ ,” Simon begged. “Jace, just – please, it won’t fit and you’ll know, you can stop – ” _Stop looking like that, stop hurting, stop h-hating me –_

_Please don’t hate me –_

   Jace hesitated. He flicked an uncertain glance at Valentine, who spread his hands calmly. “Be my guest, Janim. Whatever reassurance you need, you may have.”

   _Why isn’t he worried,_ a voice at the back of Simon’s mind whispered. _He should be worried, he should be trying to stop this –_

The Fairchild ring glimmered softly in the light from the window. The sun was just beginning to set, but Simon didn’t glance towards it. He didn’t want to see the sky bleed.

   Jace looked back at the ring. His hand trembled, ever so slightly, as he reached for it; his fingertips brushed Simon’s as they took it.

   For a long, long moment, Jace merely stood with the ring in his hand, staring at it as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it – whether to put it on, or hurl it out of the window. Valentine was the only one who watched calmly; Simon thought he would go insane, could swear the air was being sucked out of the room, the world revolving around the tiny glint of silver in Jace’s palm –

   Until, with a sound caught between a gasp and a sob, Jace picked it up and pushed it onto his finger, and Simon – he saw it, saw the silver ripple and morph and adjust, fitting itself perfectly to the finger of a Fairchild scion.

*

   “No,” Simon whispered, staring. “No. It can’t be.”

   “Do you believe me now?” Valentine asked, his voice almost, almost gentle.

   There was an embroidered chair near the window; Jace stumbled back into it, his knees buckling under him. Without making a sound, he buried his face in his hands.

   The bloody sunset glinted off the ring on his finger.

   “ _No._ ” Simon whirled, desperately, to find Valentine watching him with cool interest. “Then it has to be me. You – I can’t be – ” He had to be adopted, kidnapped as a baby, not the real Symeon – he wasn’t Symeon at _all_ , he was _Simon_ , it couldn’t be, _it couldn’t be –_

   “The Fairchild ring fits you, Symeon,” Valentine pointed out as Simon shoved his hand in his pocket, searching frantically for the Morgenstern ring.

   “Shut up!” Simon screamed at him. His fingers closed on Jace’s ring and he pulled it out, the metal cold and solid against his skin. He fumbled it so clumsily that he nearly dropped Simiel; in desperate frustration he sheathed the blade and clasped it into his cuff, and then, and then –

   Luke had pushed the Morgenstern ring onto his finger but Simon didn’t remember it altering to fit – he’d been losing himself to the _telesma_ visions, but he would remember that, wouldn’t he?

   Wouldn’t he?

   Begging for it to be true _(not true)_ Simon slid the ring onto his hand, the M shining brightly where the Fairchild F had just a moment before.

   And.

   It did not magically tighten. There was no obvious adjustment – but there didn’t need to be.

   The Morgenstern ring fit as if it had been made for him.

   Simon stared at it, unable to understand, refusing to accept it.

   “Had your mother had an affair, it would still have made you half-brothers,” Valentine told him. “But Jocelyn had far too much honour to demean herself with another man.”

   Simon barely heard him. He couldn’t stop staring at the ring, at the enchanted silver hugging his finger. It must have altered for him during the vision – and he hadn’t noticed –

   _No._

_Please, please, please –_

_N-no –_

   He couldn’t breathe. He physically could not breathe.

   “Are you ready to listen to me now?” Valentine asked.

   _Mom’s cuff. My father’s ring. My brother –_

_My brother my brother my brother –_

   _N-no –_

   His legs gave out. It was stupid and pathetic and he couldn’t help it, couldn’t stay upright; his bones rebelled against him and he fell and Valentine, Valentine lunged forward and caught him before he could hit the floor. The two of them sank to the carpet, everything turned to blistering snow and jagged flint beneath Simon’s skin and no, no, _why?_

   _Why?_

_**Why?**_

   “Hush,” Valentine said softly, and it was so wrong, he shouldn’t, but the sounds coming out of Simon’s throat were broken glass and razor wire and he wanted to howl, he wanted to scream out this loss inside him _(because it’s the loss, not the sin, that hurts – not the blood flowing through both their veins but what it means, what it’s taken, stolen from him, from them both; it means he can never, can never – please oh God please,_ please _)_ but he couldn’t begin to manifest it – could only hear it, screaming endlessly on and on in his head, red and twisted, runes of mourning and grief searing like burns on the back of his eyes. “Hush, Symeon, hush. It’s alright, son – it’s alright.”

   But Simon could hardly hear him over the screaming, the anguished howl rising above the crash of red waves, out of the darkness. Because none of it mattered. The mere handful of days that he and Jace had known each other didn’t matter; things like pride and self-consciousness didn’t matter, had no meaning; even Valentine’s arms around him, soothing and sickeningly fatherly, didn’t matter, overwhelmed and drowned out by agony.

   It didn’t matter that it was unreasonable to hurt so deeply, after so little time. It didn’t matter that it made no sense, that getting out of this room alive ought to be more of a concern than the end of a love affair. Simon _hurt_ , hurt like he’d never hurt in his life, hurt in a way that he hadn’t known he could. And he would have been happier, would have been _blessed_ to never know it, never ever ever.

   It wasn’t the sin. There was no disgust, no horror; there wasn’t room for them. There was only the _loss_ , the screaming, sobbing loss, because this – this had taken Jace from him all at once, as surely as the fall of a guillotine; a manganese-titanium guillotine, to cut his soul from him –

   He couldn’t remember how to breathe.

   Simon felt a gentle pressure pass over his blood-tacky hair; Valentine’s hand.

   His father’s hand.

   And it hurt so much, hurt so badly that he – that Simon – turned his face into the man’s chest, desperate for the smallest bone of comfort, in too much pain to question the source of it.

   _Make it stop – please – undo it, rewind it, make it not-true, not-true, don’t say –_

_Don’t say that I –_

   “It’s alright,” Valentine murmured again, his voice low and soft and gentle, as if he knew exactly how broken Simon was. His hand rubbed circles between Simon’s shoulders, the way his mom used to, when Simon was ill. “It doesn’t matter, Symeon. You need not hurt over this.”

   And Simon – he wanted – Valentine could not have chosen a more perfect lure to coax Simon out of his agony, to make him listen.

   His hand was so gentle in Simon’s hair.

   “Oh, son,” Valentine murmured. “See what they’ve done to you? They have tried to make you less than you are, with all their rules and sins. But they don’t know – they don’t understand what you are.”

   Simon was shaking, trembling as if with fever. His face was wet and he could hardly breathe, and his mind – his mind, or something more vital, something that had no name in any language he knew – was cracking under the blow of realisation. Breaking under the strain of the loss. And some nameless part of him – the part that was young and scared and hurting – listened. Because this man was his father, and an adult, and he said that it would be alright. Luke had turned his face away in disgust and Simon couldn’t imagine how he would react when he learned _this_ – but _this_ man held him, Valentine was gentle and kind and Simon had never been more desperate for kindness.

   Or more vulnerable to it.

   “I understand,” Valentine said. “I know.”

   It _hurt_ , he just wanted it to stop hurting, wanted everything to be alright again –

   “You are beyond every rule they ever made, Symeon,” his father whispered. “They cannot touch you. They cannot bind you, unless you let them.”

   Simon heard, and listened, because he was desperate for it to be true. He wanted it to be true so badly, and every defence he had – all his logic, his reason, his hatred for the war criminal who had destroyed his family – all his steel walls had turned to shadows and dust, and Valentine’s words slipped through them like stilettos, piercing him to the core –

   “What do their rules mean to one such as you?” Valentine asked softly. “Nothing. You can have anything you want, Symeon. Anything.”

   Simon felt the knife of it, the truth of it, and when Valentine gently tilted his son’s head to his the thing that looked back at him was not, wholly, Simon, otherness framed in wet eyelashes looking out and intent, intense, inhuman and _wanting_ and Valentine smiled, dark and pleased by it.

   “If you want him,” he murmured, low and intimate, coaxing, pushing, crushing the lock on the dark thing’s cage, “take him.” His smile widened, and he let his hand fall from Simon’s face. “After all – you are a Morgenstern. Who but another Morgenstern could be truly worthy of you?”

   “What are you saying?” Jace asked, because that had been loud enough for him to hear. His voice was soft. It shook, just a little. “Father?”

   “I am saying: come home with me to Idris, Janim. You, and Symeon.” Valentine’s eyes were still locked with Simon’s. “Cast off the chains they have used to bind you, and come home. I will never judge you, not for this. Come home, and you can be free to be yourselves.

   “To be together.”

   Jace inhaled sharply, and Simon could hear the longing in it – could hear it, because he felt the same sweet need pierce his own chest like a bolt from a crossbow. The audacity of it – the hope, tender and fragile – could they? He struggled to remind himself what it would entail, tried to inject a dose of reality into the instantaneous _Yes!_ howling inside of him. He shouldn’t... he couldn’t...

   _Why not?_ The other voice whispered.

   Simon closed his eyes, the conflict in him almost a panic. He wished he didn’t have to think. He wished that someone else would decide for him – he even wished, shamefully, that Valentine would just overpower and kidnap them because that would be so much easier. Simon could tell himself that there was nothing he could have done, then – it wasn’t a betrayal to be taken, like it was to leave.

   To _choose._

   _But that is what he wants,_ his other-self pointed out, cool as ice, unbothered by human things like outrage at Valentine’s daring. _He wants it to be a betrayal. He wants you to choose, consciously and knowingly, him. Over your mother, over Clary, over the Shadowhunters and the mundanes. Because once you do, the shame of having betrayed them will mean you can never go back._

_But you will have Jace._

   “Simon,” Jace – hesitant, and conflicted, hoping and uncertain, cinnamon and salt, “We could – we could sort things out there.”

   The words were like fishhooks in Simon’s heart – sharp and tugging, tearing.

   “I...” His voice was hoarse. _I don’t know. I can’t. I want to. I can’t remember why we shouldn’t._

   Valentine’s palm smoothed over Simon’s hair. “We’ll bring your mother too,” he promised soothingly, and –

   And Simon’s darkness had come awake, wary and watchful and wanting, as the blade entered the boy – but now the stiletto Valentine had in Simon’s chest, the one forged of words and wants and wishes, pushed in too far.

   It slid through the boy, and cut into the one with Enochian on his tongue.

   And that one _exploded_.

   “You had my mom in _chains_ ,” Simon hissed, and he had not been returning Valentine’s embrace, his arms were by his side and now his hand lunged for his blade; he pushed up his sleeve and the seraph blade flew to him, flew as it had that morning against Abbadon, leaping from the cuff’s clasp and into his hand even as he roared its name, “ _SIMIEL!”_ and the world blazed full of light as he thrust the knife towards Valentine’s chest –

   Valentine shoved him hard. The blow went wide, Simiel’s edge slicing open Valentine’s shirt but missing skin; Simon rolled and sprang upright with a snarl even as Valentine flowed to his feet and drew his sword in a single rippling gesture. Simon had not noticed before, in the dimming light and amidst the distractions, but his father’s long sword was of shining crystal, was –

   It was _adamas_ –

   “Azazel,” Valentine said, and a bolt of searing white fire shot through his blade, lighting it up from within. It was a Schiavona broadsword, or something like it, and between its light and Simiel’s the room danced with shadows. “Don’t do this, son.”

   “Simon!” Simon didn’t take his eyes from Valentine, but Jace sounded appalled – appalled and, maybe, scared. “What are you _doing?_ ”

   “He had mom in _chains,_ ” Simon snarled. Valentine’s face remained impassive. “He had her _kidnapped._ He took you and hurt Clary – and Abbadon, do you think a Greater Demon being there was coincidence? Alec nearly _died_ , he could _be_ dead and if he is it’s Valentine’s – ”

   “Alec isn’t dead,” Jace protested. “I would know.” But he sounded a little less sure.

   “Abbadon was a mistake,” Valentine said quietly. “It was not meant to attack you – ”

   “And the Ravener you left at our house?” Simon demanded. “You told it it could _eat me!”_

   “I was upset,” the man said calmly. “I was not myself, Symeon, I admit it. I had finally found my wife, only to discover that the reason she had hidden from me was to protect something she loved more.” His eyes met Simon’s evenly. “You.”

   For a moment, Simon was speechless.

   “I was upset,” Valentine repeated. “But she was right, and I was wrong. She should not have hidden from me, but she was right to protect you, Symeon. You are a treasure worth protecting, you are _priceless_ – ”

   “Because of what you did to me,” Simon finished for him, spitting it. “Right? _Because you did something to me_ , to make me like this, didn’t you? **_G’nay gi ipé, iada?”_**

   “What are you – Simon? Father?” Was Jace on his feet? Was he confused, was realisation starting to break over him? Simon couldn’t turn to look. “What is he talking about?”

   Valentine’s black gaze stayed fixed on his younger son. “ _Ol gi eol drilpá,_ ” he said softly, an almost religious fervour in his eyes.

   He sounded out each word carefully – the difference between a native speaker and a learned one – but Simon understood him nonetheless:

   _I made you great._

   “No,” Simon said harshly, and his heart was pounding, hurting, breaking, burning, “No, my mom did that,” and he attacked.

   “ _Simon!”_ Jace shouted.

   Simon barely heard him; he lunged forward, snarling, slashing out with Simiel like an angel’s sword of fire –

   And Azazel was there to meet him. The blades sang, crystal on crystal, and Valentine swept him aside effortlessly, with a single graceful arc of his arm; Simon pivoted on his heel at once and ripped another knife from his belt, Jace’s dagger, cool and solid against his palm and he whipped it out, slashing again, step _in_ and Valentine whirled, Azazel flashing, _glittering like ice, like death_ driving Simiel up and in for Valentine’s gut, Jace’s knife for his side –

   Sway back, the whistle of air as the blade lashes past you, a diamond whip, _come and get me,_ flash-flash-strike glass shrieks light and shadows, dazzling, blinding, step-step-one-two-one-two-whirl-duck-parry-duck- _break_ , spin apart and lash back in, lips pulled back over teeth and this is it, _this is it_ , stay in close so his longer reach is useless, stay, step, breathe, _breathe_ , crash-break-sing, war-song battle-cry, building up and up and I hate you, _I hate you,_ faster and faster and faster chime of crystal-on-crystal, metal-on-crystal, Valentine’s dark eyes wide and his shirt torn, sliced through, moving like storm winds and howling, screaming, his knives spinning in his hands _do you think Valentine_ listens _when your mother begs him not to_ –

   _Do you think he listens –_

_Listens –_

_Listens!_

   “You are exquisite,” Valentine breathed and Simon snarled, lunging for him like a tiger like fire and Valentine laughed, ducked back and swung his sword, as light on his feet as a bird on the wing. “Do you truly wish to waste your talent with _them_ , Symeon? When you could have so much more? When you could have _everything?”_

   “You can’t – give me – what I want,” Simon hissed, and Simiel splintered the light from the window, scattering it like a prism and there was redredred and Valentine gasped, more with surprise than pain as a gash opened above his hip. He broke off, stumbling backwards, Azazel raised in guard position as he touched his wound.

   Red. Red. _Red._

   “I want Jonathan!” Simon shouted, and he swung his knives, his shortswords, and Azazel snaked to block him but Simon didn’t care, was moving almost before the sword met his blades. “I want my grandparents!” He pivoted and shoved forward, driving his blades in for Valentine’s unprotected side. “ _Ol noas-congamphlgh-dobix elasa noas-telochahé!”_

   _Clang!_

   Crystal met crystal-and-metal, and Simon felt the impact all the way up to his shoulders. In a flash, Valentine moved from blocking Simon’s attack to slam the pommel of his sword into Simon’s chest, knocking the breath from him in a dull explosion of pain and pressure. Gasping for air, Simon stumbled backwards – and felt Valentine’s boot hook around his ankle quick as lightning, too fast for Simon to do anything but fall; sudden rush of air and weightlessness cut off by the hard impact of the floor against his back and skull.

   It left his head ringing, but one thing was obvious: to have disarmed him so quickly and easily, Valentine had never been in danger. He had only been toying with Simon – he had _let_ Simon cut him.

   Simon heard, and saw, Valentine’s footsteps, the carpet muffling the sound of the man’s leather boots. He stopped when he was standing by Simon’s shoulder.

   “Your abilities exceed my every expectation,” he said softly. Azazel’s point came to rest on Simon’s chest. It was strangely light, but cold even through Simon’s shirt. “I’m very proud of you. But you are no match for me yet, Symeon.”

   Valentine’s boots reached up to just below his knees, and from this distance Simon could see the faint scales that made up the leather. Dragon-leather, like Simon’s jacket. So there was no point trying to stab his father in the ankle. 

   “Father, please.” And Simon hated it, _hated_ hearing that tone in Jace’s voice – something close to fear, something uncertain and shaken and kissing-cousins to timid. “He didn’t mean it. He doesn’t understand, it’s not his fault – ”

   “I _did_ mean it,” Simon snarled. Jace’s knife had fallen away from him, but Simiel was still in his hand; he got his elbows under him and started to push himself up. Instantly, Azazel’s point flicked up to the hollow of his throat.

   Simon froze.

   “Did you?” Valentine still didn’t sound worried. Or angry. “I disagree. I think you are making that most elementary of mistakes, Symeon – falling back on your anger because you cannot handle the truth.” He stepped back, returning his sword to his belt in a singularly beautiful gesture.

   He bent down to the dagger Simon had dropped – Jace’s knife, the one Simon had thrown into Alaric’s side at the Dumort. There was so much history in the handspan of metal; Simon felt his stomach lurch as Valentine picked it up and straightened, examining it. “This is a _kindjal_ ,” the man said musingly, “a Circassian dagger. Did you know that?” He flipped it over. “This particular one used to be one of a matched pair. Here, see the star of the Morgensterns? It is carved into the blade, for all to see.” He smiled. “But the Lightwoods did not see it, did they? They chose to be blind to the truth. But you, Symeon – you know the truth.

   “And the truth is that you want Janim so much that it terrifies you,” he said softly, and his eyes – Simon couldn’t look away from them. Not even when Jace flinched in the corner of his sight. “But the thought of being without him is more frightening still, isn’t it?”

   A chill ran down Simon’s spine at the echo of Jace’s earlier words. _‘_ _This, terrifies me._

_‘But a life without you terrifies me more.’_

   Without meaning to he glanced over at Jace, and saw his own helplessness written there like a mirror, backwards and twisted but just the same. Just the same.

   “And so you lash out, like an angry child,” Valentine continued. “When all that you truly want is to take my hand, and all that I’m offering you.”

   _Yes!_ Simon’s heart cried.

 _No._ Logic, reason: his mom, Clary, Luke, his _life_ , Valentine was a _murderer_ , they couldn’t...

_Yes..._

   “Simon,” Jace whispered. “Please.”

   “Alright.” Instant, thoughtless, automatic, instinctive; his heart won control of his mouth before his brain even knew there was a battle and the agreement fell from his lips like one of the Morgenstern stars, silver and crystal, shining and immutable, all sharp edges leaving paper-cuts on his tongue and burning, burning, burning.

   Because he couldn’t take it back. Not now. Not with Jace’s face crumbling into desperate relief, like a man whose execution had just been stayed. Not with that _please_ still whispering in Simon’s mind, slicing him to ribbons, a boulder in his throat. Valentine was right, he was right about everything – Simon didn’t want to lose Jace, would do anything to keep him, stay with him, even now, even with this – he didn’t fucking _care_ , it didn’t _matter_ , nothing mattered next to the bruised look in Jace’s eyes, next to making Jace smile, making him happy.

   It was wrong, it was so, so wrong, and Simon looked at the wrongness of it in his head and felt the same blank disinterest that he had in Pangborn’s brain matter, sprayed on the wall by Clary’s bullet.

   He knew he should care. But he didn’t, and this time there was no far-away, muffled terror at his own apathy; only a deep, riptide pull towards Jace. Jace, who was the only one in colour in a black-and-white world; Jace, the only one in focus; Jace, whose pearlescent bones were the tridents ruling the ocean in Simon’s blood.

   _Jace, Jace, Jace._

   Simon had killed for him. Pangborn’s partner – Simon had taunted him, tortured him, and cut off his head. All for Jace.

   What was walking away from the life he’d known, compared to that?

   “I’ll do it,” Simon whispered – because it was Jace, and reason and logic had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

   “Good,” Valentine said simply – as though it were nothing, as though it were simple and easy and obvious _(and it was)._ He bent down and offered Simon his hand.

   Simon hesitated, because he was choosing Jace, not Valentine. Not this man with the eerie silver hair and the blood on his hands.

   But then... There was blood on Simon’s, too.

   He reached up and grasped his father’s hand.  

* * *

 

 NOTES

There’s a reference to Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights/Golden Compass in this chapter. Cookie if you spotted it!

Azazel is the angel of death in some Islamic traditions.

 _G’nay gi ipé, iada?_ – did you not, father?

 _Ol noas-congamphlgh-dobix elasa noas-telochahé!_ – I want you dead! (The phrase for ‘want’ is literally translated as ‘fall-and-become-like-a-Man’, because there is no word for ‘want’ in Enochian – angels aren’t supposed to have their own desires, only obey the will of their creator).

 


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shout-out to my amazing beta who, ONCE AGAIN, worked a miracle and got this entire chapter edited in a single night! 8D 
> 
> Here, my darlings, is the final chapter of City of Shadows. Enjoy.

   Valentine pulled Simon to his feet.

   The moment he was upright, Simon felt perfectly calm. Neither of them let go of the other immediately; he and Valentine stood still, examining each other by the chandelier’s light.

   Simiel slowly dimmed in Simon’s fist.

   After a beat, Valentine’s lips curved at the corners in a kind of dark amusement, and he shifted his grip to clasp Simon’s forearm instead. It felt like an acknowledgement, and Simon – he heard black feathers rustling, felt the heavy weight of wings shifting in his mind and on his shoulders. Felt the darkness spin a cool smile with his mouth, and flow through his fingers, returning Valentine’s hold pressure for pressure.

   It – he – liked being acknowledged.

   They let go at the same moment, something wordless and immutable decided between them, two hunters come to an understanding. Simon returned Simiel to his cuff, and Valentine offered him the kindjal hilt-first; Simon sheathed it at his belt. His body felt loose and comfortable, like well-worn clothing, and the air in the room seemed charged. Heavy and silent, in a way that reminded Simon of thick snowfall at night – icy and muffling.

   “We’re really going home?” Jace asked, as if he weren’t sure whether to believe it or not. As if he were desperate to.

   Valentine made as if to answer, but a loud _crash_ shook the walls, cutting him off before he could speak. Simon’s head snapped to Jace instinctively, making sure he was alright; Jace was on his feet, the whites of his eyes stark and wide around the gold. When he saw Simon looking at him, his eyes shifted from worry to – to something else, focussing and sharpening on Simon.

   “They’re on their way.” Valentine drew Azazel again. “Come,” he ordered, striding across the room to the mirror. His long legs devoured the space, and Simon followed without thinking, moving in a curve to sweep past Jace.

   He didn’t take Jace’s hand. Jace didn’t take his. But Jace fell into step beside him, and something thorny and knotted loosened in Simon’s chest.

   Valentine brushed his right hand over the mirror’s frame. His fingertips ran over angels and lotus blossoms, over the intricately carved figures riding horses or clutching knives among the flowers. They were fighting, dancing, running, slaying monsters – they were Shadowhunters, Simon realised, but his eyes were caught by the mirror’s reflection and he forgot the frame in an instant.

   Because the image of the room they were standing in was changing. The glittering chandelier, the rich table and heavy bookshelves – it was all dissolving, crumbling and smearing across the glass like chalk. The mirror-images of the three Morgensterns looked like a Salvador Dalí painting – Jace’s eyes dripped down his cheeks like molten gold, and beside him Valentine’s hair rotted into gleaming white slime. Simon’s face melted like hot wax, and instead of being nauseated by the sight Simon merely tilted his head and waited.

   It only lasted a few seconds. The colours changed and sharpened quickly, and then – then they were showing something else entirely.

   Jace sucked in a breath beside him at the sight, and even Simon’s other-self wasn’t unaffected. It was growing dark outside, but the mirror – the Portal – opened onto daylight, onto sunlight falling between thick leaves like handfuls of rich gold coins. There were trees – old trees, regal and ancient but not too proud to be climbed on by children, Simon felt – and beyond them a meadow unrolling like emerald velvet all the way up to a great stone house. The windows shone in the sunlight, and when the leaves around the mirror rustled Simon felt the warm breeze on his face, could smell flowers and grass and summer.

   Jace reached for Simon’s hand reflexively and gripped it tightly. The pressure made Simon’s fingers ache, but he didn’t even consider pulling his hand away.

   “Come,” Valentine said again. “We will be safe on the other – ”

   The door exploded inwards, and all three of them whipped around; Jace’s hand slipped from Simon’s as they both reached for their blades. But Simon’s fingers never reached Simiel: he stared, stunned, as Luke stepped into the room, wiping the back of his hand – still clutching his sword – over his mouth, as if to clean his face of the blood that covered it. And he was _covered_ , far more so than Simon: his arms were red from fingertips to elbows, and the blood soaking his clothes was still wet, still dripping from the edge of his sword.

   “Valentine,” he said. Then, _“Simon.”_

   Simon didn’t move. He stood frozen, his lungs filled up with snow and his blood icing over in his veins.

   Valentine stepped in front of him protectively, cutting Azazel through the air and slicing through Simon and Luke’s gaze. “Go through the Portal,” he ordered Jace and Simon. “I will be along shortly.”

   “ ‘I will be along shortly’?” Luke echoed mockingly. He shifted his stance, his sword moving like water into a two-handed guard position, for all that nearly the entire length of the room separated the two men. “Is that it, Val? No greeting for an old friend?” He stepped further into the room. “Simon, you and your friend get out of here,” he said, without taking his eyes off Valentine. “You shouldn’t see this.”

   “You underestimate my son,” Valentine replied softly. “But then, you’ve spent his entire life trying to weaken him, haven’t you?” He had his back to Simon, but Simon heard his smirk nonetheless. “You failed, Lucian. Symeon is already a greater Shadowhunter than you ever were.”

   Simon felt no pride at his father’s words. For one thing, he doubted they were true; most likely Valentine was just trying to hurt or anger Luke. For another – it was working; something bitter and sore flashed across Luke’s face like the wake of a blow.

   “Simon,” he said lowly, “Alaric has Clary. You need to – ”

   “ – let you put chains on him again?” Valentine interrupted coolly. “I think not. I will not let you take him from his family again, Lucian. Now.” And Simon could hear his cold, cruel smile. “Come at me, _dog.”_

   Luke’s lip pulled back over his teeth, but he didn’t move. “Simon _has_ a family,” he growled.

   “Indeed he does,” Valentine purred. “One who accepts him. And it’s standing on this side of the room.”

   Luke’s head snapped towards Simon. “Is that true?” he demanded. “Are you just going to stand there, with _him?_ After what he did to your mother? To Clary, your grandparents, your _brothers_ – ”

   _One who accepts him._

 _“Jace is my brother!”_ Simon hurled the words like a weapon, angry and hurting and snarling and scared, throwing the declaration down like a gauntlet between them, defiant and dangerous. “They didn’t both – he’s my _brother_ , Luke.”

   _He’s my brother, and you could hardly stand it when he wasn’t –_

   Confusion swept across Luke’s face. He glanced from Simon to Jace and back again. Valentine let him.

   Jace, pale, reached down and laced his fingers with Simon’s, squeezing. Simon squeezed back, his heart frantic in its cage of bone.

   Luke’s eyes followed the gesture, then flicked back up to Jace’s face. “Jace...” He said slowly. “Janim?” A murmur, tentative.

   “Yes,” Simon answered harshly. _Prove Valentine wrong, Luke –_

   Realisation, sweeping and awful, as Luke looked again at their clasped hands.

_Prove him wrong and accept me, this, here, now –_

   Horror.

_Prove him wrong and say you still love me –_

   Disgust.

_Please._

   “As I said,” Valentine said softly, “his family is all here.”

   Simon couldn’t look away from Luke’s expression. It was like watching a train-wreck; awful and bloody and horrific, but impossible to tear his eyes away from.

   “Luke,” he whispered. The plea was a knife skinning the inside of his throat.

   “Simon,” Luke said roughly. “You’re – it’s alright. You’re just – you’re confused.” He was clearly struggling, worry and abhorrence moving over his face like eddies in water. Ink in water. Or blood. “We’ll sort this out.”

   “You see, son?” Valentine interjected. “It is as I said. They will always seek to limit you, lessen you.” His sword moved lazily, its angle becoming less defensive, more certain. He knew he had Simon now, Simon thought dully, but the realisation brought no spark of defiance.

   All he could see was Luke’s face. Would his mom look at Simon like that, when she woke up? Would he disgust her, too?

   He felt a gentle tug on his hand and ripped his eyes away, feeling something tear in his chest with the motion. He had to blink twice before Jace’s image focussed, the blur spilling over to trickle down his cheek instead.

   Simon didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed by his tears.

   Jace tugged again, the faintest pull. “Come on,” he whispered, his eyes and voice both soft with sympathy. “Let’s just go.”

   He stepped backwards towards the mirror, pulling Simon along with him. Simon closed his eyes and pulled his other-self’s wings around himself like a feathered cloak, willingly letting that velvety darkness swallow him whole, so eager for the release of it. He didn’t want this, didn’t want to feel this – _mom, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but I can’t – I have to –_

   “Are you not ashamed of your own hypocrisy?” Valentine asked mockingly, and Simon could smell wildflowers blowing in from the mirror. The trees, the house – it looked like another world. One offering escape. “You were quick enough to cast out the etiquette of love when it suited you, Lucian.”

   Stunned rage eclipsed all else; Luke roared and lunged forward, swinging his sword in a two-handed grip. Valentine let him cross half the space of the room – and then Azazel was just _there_ , a gleaming bar of starlight that caught Luke’s blade and deflected it with a loud, singing _chime_. Simon stopped mid-step, caught by the picture the two of them made: Luke stumbling backwards, his lips pulled back in a snarl but the cast of his eyes suddenly fragile; and Valentine, his silver hair shining against his black gear, tall and straight and proud as Thranduil. He looked like an angel, and Luke – covered in blood, his expression twisted with a tangled mess of bitter, vicious emotion – didn’t.

   Simon and Jace both stopped moving as the men who’d raised them circled each other, boots moving softly over the thick carpet.

   “You’re one to talk about shame,” Luke snarled. “You told your own _parabatai_ to kill himself!” Shifting his grip on his sword, he jerked a long dagger from his belt. “Remember this, _Val?”_

   Blue stones winked in the hilt; Valentine’s eyes glanced at it. “I do,” he said, and there might have been a note of sadness there. Or maybe Simon was hearing things, maybe the confusion and heartbreak was too much and he was really going over the edge now.

   _‘This is a_ kindjal _, a Circassian dagger. This particular one used to be one of a matched pair.’_

   Simon remembered the story Luke had told him. _‘He gave me a dagger that had once belonged to his father. He said I should do the honourable thing and end my own life.’_

   It was _that_ knife. The twin to Jace’s.

   “But then, you never wanted to be my _parabatai_ , did you?” Valentine continued, and his smirk was back, cold and silvery and perfect. He darted in without warning and Luke scissored his blades to catch Azazel and it was nothing like _Lord of the Rings_ , nothing like – like anything. Simon had already known that a real battle was utterly different to a Hollywood fight scene, but this – Valentine and Luke _moved_ and none of it was flashy, none of it was meant to entertain an audience; the two men were fast and vicious and brutal with each other, metal ringing on crystal again-again-again and if Simon hadn’t had some little experience with trying to do what they were doing he would never have realised how much skill went into their duel. They made it look uncomplicated and quick and effortless, even as they tried their best to kill each other.

   “You’re sick,” Luke hissed, a low growl as he slashed the dagger after Valentine’s throat; Valentine bent his body in half, spine parallel with the floor like a limbo dancer, and came straight back up like a wind-blown reed with Azazel’s sharp edge leading him. _Clang-swish-crang!_ “It’s your blood, your name, poisoning Simon. The only thing wrong with him is _you!”_

   Simon flinched.

   Valentine laughed. Azazel was a streaking star, a lightning bolt heralded by steel thunder, _flash-flash-flash_ and he kicked Luke’s hip, snapped in close and Luke’s arms flew up, catching Valentine’s sword and pinning them chest-to-chest.

   “A neat excuse,” Valentine said tauntingly. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “What’s yours, Lucian? Did my name infect you, too?”

   Luke hissed, straining to shove him away. He pulled back with the dagger but in an instant Valentine caught his wrist, almost faster than Simon could follow.

   Valentine leaned in so that their faces were almost touching, and Simon had to strain to hear his next words. “I shouldn’t have been surprised when you couldn’t fight off the lycanthropy,” his father purred, low and silky. “You always were a little bitch in heat.”

   Simon blinked. Between the moment his eyes closed and opened again, Valentine broke Luke’s wrist and slammed his head into Luke’s face; between one breath and the next Valentine released him and Luke staggered back, blood fountaining down his face from his broken nose –

   And Valentine stabbed him through the chest.

 _“Luke!”_ The cry ripped from Simon’s lips without forethought, the shock of the dark red blood shattering Simon’s icy numbness. It was _Luke_ , his dad in all-but-name, the only one he’d ever known – birthday parties and helping with homework and parent-teacher meetings, the man who’d bought him his first comic books and listened to him confess all his feelings for Clary – and now Azazel extended from his back, running him through, the look on his _face_ –

   Simon almost ran forward, but Jace pulled him back – jerked him back against Jace’s chest and wrapped his arms around Simon’s waist. “Don’t,” Jace said softly.

   “Let me go!” Simon tried to fight Jace’s hold, but part of him – part of him didn’t want to. Even now, even with Luke hurt…

   “So you can get caught between them? Not a chance.” Simon felt Jace’s forehead against the back of his skull. “This is how it’s done, Simon. Just...don’t look.”

    But Simon couldn’t look away. Valentine front-kicked Luke and Luke stumbled, sliding off the sword with a sick, wet sound – falling to one knee in front of Valentine.

   He dropped his dagger.

   He dropped it and Valentine hadn’t even paused: his kick flowed smoothly into the swing of his sword –

   “ ** _NO!_** ” Simon shouted, and it wasn’t a scream, it was a _roar_ , burning white like the light of a seraph blade carving a rune in the air, twisting and curving and one harsh slash like the stroke of a sword, the Mark he’d glimpsed when he needed _out_ and now he needed to _stop, stop, everything STOP –_

   Static, screeching, a song humming in his teeth and spiralling over his bones; it hooked white claws in Valentine and he –

   Stopped.

   Jerked to a halt with Azazel’s sharp edge inches from Luke’s neck and the rune in Simon’s head _burned,_ pulsing like a heart, hot and bright and _loud_ and Simon gasped with the pressure of it, struggling to hold it – like trying to hold back a raging comet with skeins of thread, pulling and blazing and his reins dissolving in his hands as fast as he could spin them, sing them, _NO_ and Valentine was the comet and it was _agony_ , like holding the weight of a screaming sky; Simon dug in with mental fingernails and shrieked through gritted teeth as the effort pulled him apart –

   And black wings spread wide. _Like this,_ his other-self whispered, and it wasn’t easy but it was easi _er_ ; the comet had handles, dozens of gleaming black hand-holds singing to him and Simon curled his fingers over them and they burned, burned him and he snarled aloud.

   “Drop it!” he ordered. Songs, so many songs, each hand-hold was singing. No, they _were_ songs, deafening him, hundreds of instruments, voices, any moment and they would sweep him under – “ _Now!”_

   A struggle, titanic. Valentine’s arms were trembling, vibrating with tension.

   Slowly, fighting all the way, his fingers loosened.

   And Azazel fell to the ground.

   Simon crumpled. Jace caught his weight, fear and concern on his face, but Simon couldn’t answer his questions, could barely hear them. Luke was staring at him wide-eyed, and there was wetness on Simon’s face.

   He didn’t have the strength to see what it was, but it trickled over his lips and he tasted it: blood. From his eyes and nose.

   Suddenly pain smashed into his face, knocking him from Jace’s arms. Simon fell to the floor, too weak to catch himself and too breathless to scream. The blow had landed on the cut from Hodge’s _chakram_ ; it hurt so much that Simon retched, physically sick with agony.

   “Don’t _ever_ do that to me again,” Valentine hissed, standing above him. “Or I will – ”

   _“Sanvi!”_

   Simon never got to hear what Valentine would do next time; silver streaked across his view and Valentine jerked back mid-sentence, unabashed shock sweeping over his rage as Jace stepped over Simon towards their father, a seraph blade in his hand.

   Simon caught a glimpse of his face; pale, and eclipsed with a fury that was to Valentine’s as the sun was to a candle-flame.

   “Touch him again,” Jace said, and the chandelier’s light ran over the edge of his blade, so that for a moment it looked like an angel’s burning sword, “and you will regret it.”

   Valentine stared at him incredulously. _“What did you say?”_

   “You heard me.” Jace’s blade was as long as Azazel, and Simon dimly remembered how Jace had shown him the blades could be changed at will, once you knew how to do it. “I think you should leave.”

   _“Janim Morgenstern – ”_

   “You didn’t mean a word of it, did you?” Jace’s voice was flat and cold, but Simon could hear the pain in it, the grief of a ten year old boy watching his father die in front of him – all over again, just in a different way. “You don’t want us to be a family. You just want us for your soldiers.”

   “That is not true,” Valentine said softly. Had his eyes softened too? Simon couldn’t tell. He was still fighting to get his breath back. “You are my sons. I want us to be together.”

   “Then why did you leave me?” The crystal sword in Jace’s hand... Simon was almost sure it was trembling. “You let me think you were dead and you sent me away to live with strangers. You never told me I had a mother, a brother. You left me _alone!”_

   The agony in that final word pierced Simon’s heart like a knife.

   “I did it for you – to keep you safe!” Valentine protested.

   Jace hesitated.

   Valentine pressed his advantage. “The Portal home is just behind you,” he said quietly. “All we have to do is step through it, son. All three of us. And I swear to you, I will never leave you again.”

   Silence, then. Silence, except that Simon could almost hear Jace cracking, breaking. Wanting.

   Who could blame him?

   He glanced back and down at Simon, and Simon understood that conflicted glance perfectly: the desperate desire to have someone else choose. To not have to hold the responsibility of it; to be able to say _it wasn’t me._ It would be such a relief.

   One that Simon couldn’t give him. “I chose already,” he whispered.

   _You left me_ alone!

   But Simon wouldn’t. _I won’t leave you._ No matter what. Luke’s blood, Valentine’s blow, Clary, his mom, the ribbons of shared DNA choking Jace and Simon both; none of it mattered. None of it was relevant to making sure that Jace never, _ever_ had to hurt again.

   _I **will not** leave you. No matter what you choose, you won’t be alone again. I promise._

  Uncertainty – so unfamiliar, such a direct contradiction of Jace’s usual confidence – burned in Jace’s face, and he closed his eyes as if pained.

   It was an effort to speak, but... “It’s okay,” Simon said softly. Struggling with a body that felt shaped out of snow – and liable to dissolve into water at any moment – he clumsily pushed himself up off the floor. The cut on his face throbbed painfully, and he swayed, the room spinning dizzily around him for a moment. Swallowing hard, and ignoring Valentine’s sharp glance, he stood upright behind Jace and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Jace.”

   Jace was trembling under his hand. “I just want what’s good in my life,” he whispered. “My father – my family – I can’t lose it all again.”

   Simon inhaled deeply, steadying himself. Black waves lapped at arcs of gleaming garnet sand, somewhere deeper than conscious thought. “I go where you go,” he said quietly. Fiercely. “Whatever you choose, you won’t lose everything. You won’t lose me.”

   Valentine turned those dark eyes on him once more; Simon lifted his head and met his gaze without flinching. He tightened his grip on Jace’s shoulder. “Choose whatever you want,” he said softly. “Whatever you really, truly want. I’m with you.”

   Jace’s breathing hitched.

   “Janim...” Valentine said cautiously.

   “Jace,” Simon whispered. His lips were nearly against the blond’s ear.

   A swift, violent shudder ran through Jace’s body – and he lowered his sword. “I want to go home,” he said. He sounded very, very young. “I just...I just want to go _home_.”

   Valentine did not sigh with relief, but Simon saw it in his face nonetheless. He had not been sure what Jace would choose. That wasn’t surprising. Simon hadn’t been either, but now that it was said – now that the choice was made – he felt no surprise, no alarm, just an unearthly calm.

   At least until Valentine said “And so you shall. But Symeon cannot come with us.”

   Serenity snapped into steel in an instant, but Jace was quicker. “What? Why?” Shock, then demand: Jace stepped back, pushing Simon closer to the Portal. As a rejection of Valentine, it was a little counter-productive. “I’m not going without him!”

   “He cannot be trusted.” Valentine’s dark eyes were glacial. “It seems that I misjudged you,” he told Simon. “Your mother’s weakness bred true.”

   _My mom is the best woman in the world!_ Simon snarled silently. But when he spoke, his voice was cool. “What do you want?”

   “Pardon?” Valentine’s eyes glittered.

   “Don’t dress it up.” Cold. Bored. Jace glanced over his shoulder at Simon, startled by the ice, but Simon didn’t look away from their father. “You want something to prove my loyalty. Fine. I know you have something in mind already. Tell me what it is already so we can get out of here.”

   Valentine looked him over consideringly. Again Simon caught that glimpse of sharp amusement, something that might almost have been pride. _You didn’t misjudge me at all,_ he thought, lifting his chin a fraction under the scrutiny. _And you know it._

   Their eyes locked.

   “As you say,” Valentine said finally. A small smirk flickered at the corners of his lips; abruptly he turned away from his sons and strode back towards the table. He drew something out of his breast pocket and set it down with such reverent care that Simon knew instantly it could only be one thing.

   He felt Jace start. “Hodge gave it to him,” Simon said quietly before he asked.

   Valentine looked up at them. “Indeed.” He stepped back and gestured towards the card. “This is what I want, Symeon,” he said softly. “If you would prove your loyalty, as you put it – then give me the Cup of Raziel. Give me the Cup, and take your rightful place at my side.”

   Simon drew his mother’s stele like a sword.

   “Simon...” Luke’s voice was hoarse, rough as sandpaper and pain. He struggled to sit up, clutching his sluggishly bleeding wound. _“Don’t._ You can’t...give him the Cup!”

   “Sorry, Luke,” Simon said coldly. He didn’t look at him as he stepped around Jace and walked towards the table – the table, and the card, and his father. He had to focus on walking in a straight line, on staying upright. “I like daddy-dearest’s offer better. Nothing personal. I guess there’s just something _wrong_ with me.”

   Simon didn’t see if Luke flinched, but Valentine’s eyes flashed with dark triumph as Simon bent over the table, bracing himself heavily against it with his stele poised over the card.

   He touched the crystal point to the paint – and hesitated.

   Jocelyn had fought so hard to keep the Cup out of Valentine’s reach...it was a piece of sick irony that it was the son she’d raised who was going to give it back to him.

   Simon shrugged away the thought and began drawing the first rune of the _telesma._

 _‘Do you know what he wanted to use it for, after he’d won the Uprising?’_ Jace whispered in his memory. _‘He was going to make Shadowhunters out of mundane children, build himself a child army, even though the Cup_ kills _nine out of ten of those unprepared for the change.’_

   Simon paused again, halfway through the first Mark.

   “Is there a problem?” Valentine asked softly. Warningly.

   Simon had been ready to burn the whole world down if Jace was hurt, to keep him safe. But this wasn’t the same, was it? This was – this was a crime against humanity just for the sake of staying with Jace, not in an effort to protect him.

   Was Jace’s happiness worth as much as his safety? Would Simon pay as high a price for it?

   _Should_ he?

   _A better question,_ a voice murmured, _would be: is Jace worth more than a thousand thousand strangers? Worth the army Valentine will build with the Cup, worth war among the Nephilim, worth unleashing a silver-haired Hitler on the world again?_

   And just like that, the uncertainty was gone. _Yes._

 _Yes, because he is worth_ everything _._

   “No,” he said quietly. “It’s fine.”

   His hand moved, drawing arcs of smooth ebony beneath the point of his stele, tracing angelic calligraphy over his mother’s painting.

   He thought of the angel of death, sent down into Egypt to take the firstborn of every family. Thought of that darkness settling over every home, every family.

   Thought he could hear black wings spreading wide enough to eclipse the sun.

   _“Simon!”_ Luke shouted suddenly. _“Stop!”_

   They had planned the interruption, and Simon was braced for it; he didn’t turn, didn’t jerk. He swept through another rune and the curve of it was perfect, exquisite, his focus unbroken and flawless.

   “Be silent or be silenced,” Valentine said harshly.

   But Luke ignored him. He had seen, could see, that Simon wasn’t paying any attention. “Simon...” he whispered. His soft voice was full of dawning realisation, dawning horror. “You can’t. You _can’t._ ”

   “He most certainly can,” Valentine murmured, a wild, burning satisfaction catching fire in his face. “Watch, Lucian. Watch blood will out.” He laughed, soft and triumphant. “Watch the beginning of the end for your race of mutts.”

   “Simon,” Jace said, “ _stop!”_

   Not a plea. Not a cry. A command, one that dug golden claws in Simon’s throat and heart and _wrenched,_ whirling him in place.

   His stele, dropped and forgotten, clattered on the tabletop.

   Jace stood very still, pale and determined. “Don’t give him the Cup,” he said quietly.

   “Alright,” Simon said softly. Like it was nothing.

   Nothing at all.

   “What?” Valentine turned on Jace, furious. “What is the meaning of this?”

   This time, Jace didn’t quail. “You can’t have the Cup, father. If you want a family, we can leave, all three of us, right now. But I took an oath to protect the mundanes from the Shadow World. I can’t let you have an army.”

   Without turning around, Simon reached behind himself and grasped the card.

   “You can’t _let_ me? You are a _child_ ; you do not _allow_ me to do anything!” When Jace stood firm, Valentine spun to face Simon. “Finish the _telesma!”_

   Simon looked up at him. His stele was back in his hand. “I can’t,” he said simply.

   “Yes,” Valentine hissed, “You _can._ ” He shoved Simon aside and picked up the card. “You only have to – ”

   Simon braced for the effort and bolted past him, running towards Luke. “Jace, drop!”

_If you draw a rune incorrectly, it just won’t work –_

   The Marks on the card glowed white-hot, casting a blinding light on Valentine’s look of belated understanding – and fear.

 _– but a bad_ telesma _can kill you._

   Simon dropped over Luke just as the card detonated.

   The shockwave tore through the room with a roar, air and weight and light and the table shattered, splintering under the force. Valentine bellowed with pain and the explosion smacked Simon down against the ground, pinning Luke to the floor under him, and he felt a wave of blistering heat against his back through his jacket.

   He tucked his head in against his chest and waited it out. Somewhere very far away, he could feel a dim and distant terror.

   It lasted an instant. It lasted forever.

   Until suddenly it was over, and Simon could look up. His eyes flew for Jace – and another grenade burst in his chest when he couldn’t find him.

   “Jace!” He shoved himself upright. He had gone to protect Luke because Jace was no damsel in distress; awake and aware he could take care of himself, but –

   Valentine was standing in front of the Portal. His left hand was clutched to his chest: since it hadn’t been reduced to mincemeat Simon guessed Valentine must have tried to throw the card away – but card wasn’t aero-dynamic; it would still have been close to him when it exploded.

   Simon didn’t care, couldn’t care, because Jace – the force of the blast had thrown Jace through the mirror. He was a few feet away and he was leagues away, picking himself up off grass in a country that existed on no mundane map.

   Valentine was staring at Simon. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?” he breathed. His voice was raw, but the pain didn’t seem to be physical – his burnt face was shocked with something close to anguish. “You destroyed it. The _Angel’s Cup_. It was priceless. The only means of saving our people, and _you_ _destroyed it.”_

   “They’re your people,” Simon said, drawing Simiel from beneath his sleeve, from the cuff. “Not mine.”

   “They are your blood!” Valentine hissed, as Jace got to his feet behind him. “ _I_ am your blood!”

   A thick, cloying rage swept over Simon. Blood. Blood and family and Jace, Janim, brothers and lovers and a huge, earth-shattering _hate_. “Blood means _nothing!”_ he snarled, and Simiel lit up with white fire, with the same blaze of light that had torn apart the card. “It means _NOTHING!”_

   “It is everything,” Valentine said softly, and when Jace lunged – to attack or slip past him, Simon wasn’t sure – Valentine spun on one heel and slammed the edge of his hand into Jace’s throat.

   Or tried. Jace swayed backwards out of the way, the exact same move Valentine had pulled to avoid Luke’s sword; bending in half like a reed in the wind. And then springing back up, and through the glass, and Simon flew at Valentine as if the black wings in his head were real. He crashed into his father’s chest and Jace dove for the man’s legs and Simiel was still in Simon’s hand until suddenly it was in Valentine’s stomach, sick and sweet and easy as anything, redredred and Valentine was falling. Simon got his feet under him and grabbed at Jace’s upflung wrist and wrenched him up, away, and the Portal rippled like quicksilver as Valentine fell through it. Falling, fallen, and Simon outstretched his free hand and _wanted_ and Simiel flew to his fingers, slid free in a gush of crimson and leapt to Simon’s palm in a glitter of diamond and wet garnet.

   Jace let go of his hand and braced himself, holding Sanvi out in front of him.

   Valentine lay still for a moment on the grass, heartbeats and miles away. He was not dead: his eyes were open, and he was breathing, and everything in Simon _screamed_ to make that not-so. It was easy, so easy, to pivot 180 and turn on Valentine, because he’d never been allied with him – only with _Jace,_ and now Jace was standing here beside him with his sword drawn and Simon was free to hate, to hate and hate this man who had ripped _everything_ apart – Jocelyn and the apartment and Clary and Jace, Janim, _blood_. Valentine had reached into their hearts and torn them to shreds, taken the most precious thing and stained it, and Simon knew he shouldn’t cross the Portal but he shook with wanting to rip Valentine into _pieces_ , let Simiel taste the man’s throat and _tear it open_ –

   And then Valentine _moved_ , jack-knifed upright and reached for the Portal, his expression enraged –

   And Simon jerked forward to attack but Jace caught him, held him back and Simon screamed instead – screamed and _screamed._ His bones felt scraped hollow, were throbbing with pain because it had been hours since Abbadon and after all the _telesme_ , all the fighting, breaking out of Hodge’s cage and possessing Valentine meant his roar of rage was as much defiance of the pain as it was fury because he _did not care_ , the well of power inside him was well and truly dry and he called on it anyway, black wings and red waves and the taken-aback surprise on Valentine’s face.

   And just a moment, swift and sweet, of fear as Simon howled a single note, a distilled song of wrath-punishment- _hatred_ , blazing-black and searing-white and _roaring_. Most of the glass in the room had been blown out by the _telesma-_ explosion but not the Portal, not until Simon’s scream sent cracks streaking across it like lightning and cut Valentine’s image in two and it –

   _Shattered_. For the second time in nearly as many minutes the room exploded and Simon was already falling, no strength left to stand and Jace controlled the fall, flung them both down as a hailstorm of glass shards whirlwinded around them.

   The hard blow of hitting the floor was like jolting back into reality.

   For a moment, both of them lay still. Jace held his hand between Simon’s shoulders, just as he had at Dorothea’s, and Simon didn’t want to move. Wasn’t sure he could.

   His throat felt like it was on fire.

   Jace whispered to himself, so softly that Simon almost didn’t hear it: _“Dam habrit ava yoter mimayim shel harehem.”_   His voice broke on the last word, a kind of hitching whisper-gasp.

   It took Simon a second to remember where he’d heard the words before: Hodge. _The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb._ Jace was whispering it over and over, as if that would make it true.

   Simon rolled onto his side, heedless of the handful of small cuts and the aching wound on his cheek, and clutched Jace to him fiercely. When Jace just _went_ – allowing himself to be held, tucking his face against Simon’s neck and shaking, trembling violently – Simon carded his fingers through Jace’s hair and kissed his forehead hard, his eyes stinging with tears.

   “Simon?” Luke asked. Simon couldn’t name the tone of his voice – or the look on his face, when he looked up and saw the werewolf sitting up a few feet away. He was no longer clutching his wound; the bleeding seemed to have stopped. “Are you two...alright?”

   Simon just looked at him.

   Luke broke their gaze first. Simon saw his throat bob as he swallowed. “Did you – did you make the switch?”

   In answer, Simon hooked his fingers under the sleeve of his left hand – under his cuff – and drew out Jocelyn’s tarot card from where he’d hidden it when Valentine looked away. “Don’t worry,” he said tonelessly, hoarsely, tossing it sideways so that it frisbeed onto the carpet between him and Luke. “It was Clary’s copy that got burnt. Your precious Cup is safe and fucking sound.”

   Luke reached for it, almost hesitantly. “For a minute there, I thought you really were going to give it to Valentine,” he said quietly.

   “I was.” Simon shut his eyes. “Is Clary okay?”

   “I... She’ll be fine.”

   “Then leave me alone, Luke.” He clutched Jace tighter. “Just leave us the hell alone for a minute.”

 _“Dam habrit ava yoter mimayim shel harehem,”_ Jace breathed against Simon’s chest, and Simiel was still in Simon’s fist, wet with their father’s blood, and Simon didn’t care.

   He hugged Jace tighter. With his eyes closed he could almost feel black wings folding around his brother, holding him safe. “Just leave us alone,” he whispered.

 

* * *

 

NOTES

Lotuses, in magic, are used for ‘lock opening’. I decided this was appropriate for a portal.

 


	34. Epilogue the First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 1-12 have now been updated with the final, polished versions! The only inserts of note are in chapters 6 & 7: in chapter six, more information is given about Dorothea (including a surprise!) and in chapter seven, the scene between Jace and Simon in the van, before they reach McD's, has been extended :) Enjoy!

   Four days had passed since that terrible night at Renwicks, but Java Jones had not changed at all. Clary couldn’t decide whether it was reassuring or eerie. How many days had it been since she and Simon had last been here, the morning after Pandemonium?

   Too many, and not enough.

   “I really don’t want to be here,” Simon said quietly beside her, and she wondered if he was thinking of the same day. He’d seen Jace here, back when she was still blind.

   She touched the faerie stone reflexively; it was hanging at her collarbone. “Tough,” she said ruthlessly, steering him towards one of the tables by the window. “Mom’s worried enough about you as it is. If you starve to death in my room, I’ll never hear the end of it.” She pushed him firmly into a chair. “Now, do you want your usual? Or do you want your coffee as black as your emo little soul today?”

   She felt a flicker of triumph when he snorted. “The usual is fine,” he said wryly.

   “Glad to hear it,” she said archly, and went to order.

   While in the queue, she surreptitiously checked the time on her phone.

   “Couldn’t you decide which one you wanted?” Simon asked when she returned with three drinks instead of two. “I know you have a sweet tooth, Lewis, but really – ”

   He froze as a familiar face strode past the window.

   “Don’t freak out,” Clary said hurriedly as he rose to his feet, “Simon, please – ”

   “Did you arrange this?” he demanded. His eyes were frantic and wild, like a cornered animal; he shoved away from the table as the Shadowhunter walked through the door and towards them. “I told you – I told you I couldn’t do this, Clary – ”

   “Sit the _fuck_ down, Simon,” Isabelle snapped. “We need to talk.”

   “About what?” Simon didn’t sit, and people were starting to turn and look at the commotion, the raised voices. “Exactly which part of the sordid mess did you want to discuss, exactly?”

   “If you care about Jace at all,” Isabelle said, “you will _sit.”_

   Simon dropped into his chair as though his legs had been cut from under him.

   Clary took the seat next to him and refused to feel guilty. “Your drink,” she told Izzy, pushing the cup towards her.

   “Thanks.” Isabelle flung herself down with feline grace and took her drink the way a Queen would her tribute.

   Clary touched her pendant again. Maybe it was the stone that let her see the scars gleaming on Isabelle’s bare arms like scraps of white silk. Or maybe it was just because Clary wasn’t as blind as other mundanes anymore. “Eric gave Izzy his number, back at the concert,” she told Simon calmly. “Before you ask.”

   “He was helpful enough to give me Clary’s, too, when I asked for it,” Izzy added.

   “Clearly I’m going to have to go over the concept of stranger-danger with him again,” Simon said stonily. “What the hell are you doing here, Izzy? I thought...”

   “What, that we’d never want to see you again?” Izzy asked. “After you _saved Alec’s life?_ You did, you know. If you hadn’t drawn those runes in the van, he’d be dead. Because of you, Magnus had time to reach him.”

   “Magnus?”

   “I tried to tell you,” Clary said. She and Izzy had spent most of the last four days talking. Simon...hadn’t. “You didn’t want to hear it.”

   “No. I didn’t.” Simon breathed in shakily. “But I’m really glad Alec’s okay.”

   “Me too,” Izzy said. “He wants to see you, you know.”

   It was astonishing, Clary thought, the change a handful of words could make: Simon turned into a knife before her eyes, all of him sharpened down to one thing, one focus. “Jace?”

   Isabelle’s expression softened. “I meant Alec,” she said gently.

   Simon’s face fell. He closed his hands around his coffee mug and stared into it as it if might have the answers he was looking for.

   Clary and Isabelle exchanged glances. “It’s Jace’s birthday soon,” Isabelle said slowly. “He’ll be eighteen. There’ll be a ceremony – he’ll take the full oaths to the Clave. Only family can attend. You should come.”

   Simon laughed, bitterly. “As _family?”_

   Without warning, Isabelle let go of her cup and snatched at Simon’s arm – snake-quick, blade-quick. “What do you think this makes you?” she demanded, shoving up Simon’s sleeve. “Do you think this makes you a stranger?”

   Simon jerked his arm away, but not quickly enough to hide the black leather, the glint of crystal. The beautiful, infamous cuff.

   Clary only caught a glimpse of it before Simon was tugging his sleeve down, his expression caught between humiliation and sickness and tears. “You’re still wearing it,” she whispered. She’d had no idea, had assumed that his long sleeves were to hide injuries from that night.

   Simon didn’t look at either of them. “Still think I can be his _brother_ , Isabelle?” he asked harshly. “Still think I can be _family?”_

   “You’re already family,” Isabelle said, recovering. “You saved Alec. Really, you probably saved Jace too, since the Fallen know what Valentine would have done with him – ”

   Simon shook his head. “If you believe a word of what’s coming out of your mouth, then Jace didn’t tell you _anything_.” His eyes hooked Clary’s, sharp and gleaming, and she wondered if he was remembering the same moment she was: his crystal blade cutting through the man’s neck. All that blood, spurting up to splash over Simon’s glasses.

   The way he had laughed.

   Simon looked back at Isabelle. “I don’t _want_ to be family, Izzy. As far as I’m concerned, Jace is your brother, not mine. And you can tell him that.” He got to his feet. “I’m done. If you want me, Clary, I’ll be at Eric’s.”

   “But you didn’t even – ” Clary protested, glancing at his drink. He hadn’t touched it, but it was too late: he was gone. “...touch your drink,” she finished with a sigh.

   “Jace has been like that too,” Isabelle said after a moment. “Snapping and snarling, like Church with a hairball.”

   “Church?” Clary asked.

   “He’s our cat.” Isabelle frowned. “Or maybe we’re his humans. It’s hard to say.”

   “I’ve heard that it can be like that with cats,” Clary agreed solemnly.

   The girls grinned at each other across the table, then sighed as one. “What are we going to do with them?” Clary asked.

   Isabelle spread her hands helplessly. “I have no idea. Snarling aside, I don’t think Jace has said ten words since that night. I don’t have to be his _parabatai_ to know he’s miserable.”

   Clary dipped her cookie into her coffee cup. Simon had talked. He’d been there when Clary had woken up at the hospital, and when she was out and sat him down and said ‘tell me’, he had.

   She had never seen him cry like that. Like his heart was broken.

   “I’ve never seen Simon so unhappy,” she said quietly. “Did I tell you his mom still hasn’t woken up? She’s on life support at the hospital. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her.” She shrugged. “Luke says it’s magic, but we’re not really listening to Luke just now.”

   “What? Why?” Isabelle frowned. “He’s the werewolf, right?”

   “Right. But he’s – he wasn’t really happy when he found out that Simon was bi, and then it turned out that Jace was his _brother_ , and it all just – ” Clary waved her hand vaguely. “I don’t know. Simon was supposed to stay with him – with Luke, I mean – but after just one night he showed up on my mom’s doorstep asking to stay. Now Luke’s paying my mom for Simon’s room and board. Guilt money, I guess.”

   She took a deep breath, wondering how to explain it so a Shadowhunter could understand. “I guess what I’m trying to say is – I don’t know about Jace, but Simon’s lost just about _everything_. His mom – you have no idea how close they were. And after everything he went through to rescue her, she still won’t wake up. I think he feels like it was all for nothing.”

   Isabelle nodded slowly, sipping at her drink. “Jace has lost his family name,” she said bluntly. “And I’d like to believe that’s the only reason he seems so lost, but I know it isn’t.”

   Clary had had a few days to wrap her mind around the idea, and a couple of years before that to adjust to the concept of Wincest. But she knew Izzy hadn’t, so she kept her voice light as she said, “Would it really be so awful?”

   “Would what be awful?”

   “Jace and Simon.” She didn’t flinch under Isabelle’s startled look. “Well, would it? It’s not like they’re _really_ brothers.”

   “The rings,” Isabelle began, but Clary cut her off.

   “Screw the rings,” she said fiercely. “They weren’t raised together. They don’t feel like brothers, do they? And I know that _I_ don’t feel like they’re related. They don’t even look alike! And it’s not as though they’re going to have kids together, is it? They’re both guys. So who cares?”

   “It’s _incest_ ,” Isabelle hissed.

   “What’s your point?” Clary challenged.

   “It’s...it’s...” Isabelle struggled. “It’s just wrong.”

   “When Alec falls in love with someone, is _that_ going to be wrong?”

   “No, of course not! But what does that have to do with anything?” She looked confused now.

   That was all right. Clary was going to educate her. “Because,” she said patiently, “it’s just the same. Alec loving somebody is _just the same_ as Simon loving somebody. There are people who think Alec is wrong too, you know.” Izzy nodded. “But he’s not,” Clary continued. “Being in love with someone... The details don’t matter – whether it’s a guy or a girl, or somebody non-binary... Never mind, that’s a lesson for another day,” Clary added hurriedly, seeing Isabelle’s growing confusion. “Look, it’s like this, okay? As long as everybody loves each other – as long as everybody is capable of consenting, and does – then who the fuck cares? What two or more people do in their own relationship isn’t anybody else’s business.” She paused. “Unless somebody’s abusive, I guess, then outsiders should step in. But the rest of the time the bigots should keep their damn noses out of it.”

   Isabelle stared at her for so long that Clary began to worry that she’d gone too far.

   “I’m sorry, my brain got stuck on ‘two or more people’,” the Shadowhunter said eventually. “Is that normal for mundanes?”

   Clary shrugged. “Not yet,” she said archly. “Give us time.”

   Isabelle gave her an odd look. “Well, I _think_ it makes sense,” she said slowly. “What you said about it being no one else’s business. It’s just...”

   “Weird to apply logic to your prejudices?” Clary asked wryly. “Yeah. You’d be amazed how many people say that.”

   Isabelle leaned back in her chair, clutching her cup. Despite her declaration, she was clearly still trying to wrap her head around the idea. “So you think Jace and Simon...?”

   “Should totally get it on,” Clary said firmly. “Yes. Have you _seen_ them kiss? Gods, yes.”

   She was teasing now, and Isabelle obliged her by laughing, tossing her head back so that her black hair fluttered like a raven’s wing. “They really _don’t_ feel like brothers, do they?” she asked when she’d calmed.

   “I thought you’d be harder to convince,” Clary confessed.

   Isabelle didn’t answer immediately; she nursed her coffee, her eyes wandering over the walls, the people. Clary’s fingers flexed, wishing for her sketchpad; she would have liked to draw Isabelle like this, like something wild and magical and beautiful come to rest in an absurdly mundane locale – like a dragon in a haberdashery, or a pharmacy. Java failed to contain her; it was too small. Isabelle was too vibrant, too _much_ for a normal coffee-shop.

   Olianthe had been like that, Clary thought, her stomach tightening at the memory. Like the only one in oils in a chalk drawing.

   “I guess you can’t see it,” Izzy said finally. “You don’t know Jace, so you don’t know what he was like before Simon. You didn’t get to see what huge changes Simon made in him. And they were _good_ changes. He was – it’s not that he was unhappy before, exactly, but he’d never been happy like _that._ And Simon’s the one who made him that way.” She glanced over at Clary. “I love Jace,” she said simply. “He’s my brother. And if Simon makes him happy...then I want him to be with Simon.” She smiled a little. “But you’ll never convince the Clave of your logic. I don’t think they’ll care.”

   “No,” Clary agreed, “and probably not Luke either.” She met Isabelle’s gaze over the rim of her cup. “But maybe we can convince the boys.”

   “Hm.” Isabelle lifted her cup in a tiny salute. “Maybe we can.”

   They grinned at each other, and drank.

   “Now that _those_ two are sorted,” Isabelle said lightly – as though it were that simple, as if she could wave a hand and magic all her family’s troubles away just like that, “it’s your turn.” Her eyes glittered. “Spill.”

   Clary stared at her blankly. “What?”

   Isabelle’s grin turned wicked. “Olianthe,” she sing-songed. “Tell me _aaaaall_ about it. Her.” Her tone was utterly casual as she added, “That’s what best girl-friends talk about, isn’t it?”

   Clary paused. She peered at Isabelle’s face, trying to see if the other girl was mocking her. Instead, she thought she saw a flicker of something hesitant, and maybe vulnerable, in the back of Izzy’s eyes.

   Simon had said the Shadowhunters were scarily isolated. Had Izzy ever had a proper friend before?

   “No,” she said slowly. Isabelle’s face fell, until Clary continued, firmly, “best girl-friends teach their best girl-friends about fanfiction.”

   “Fanfiction?” Isabelle blinked. “What’s that?”

   Clary smirked. This was going to be _fun_.


	35. Epilogue the Second: Canon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for a few reasons, and with the help of Starrie_Wolf, I decided to rewrite Epilogue the Second.
> 
> This needed to be done. The original version was not consistent with the characterisations of either Runed!Magnus or Runed!Alec, nor with the Shadowhunter/Downworlder culture in this series, and had several problematic elements that, once they were pointed out to me, I was very unhappy with.
> 
> So here you go! This is the version that should be considered 'canon' for Runed, although I will be leaving the old version up because I have a soft spot for it, and I don't want to delete all the lovely comments you guys left on it. This new version is absolutely compulsory reading, not least because it contains very important information about Magnus' past. (For those who will wonder: yes, that has always been part of Runed!Magnus' character. It was originally going to be revealed around City of Blood, but I realised that it fit very well here, so now the reveal is here instead).
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it :)

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Alec watched as Simon gingerly took a seat next to the bed. “Are you...are you okay?” he asked awkwardly.

Simon smiled. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He dropped his rucksack at his feet.

Alec shook his head. “I’m fine. The Silent Brothers are sending someone to check me over today, and then I’ll finally be allowed out of bed.” He tried not to stare. He wasn’t sure who—what—he was looking at anymore. A few days ago he would have insisted that Simon was just a mundane playing at being a demon hunter.

But that was before he’d saved Alec’s life, just as surely as Magnus had. That was before Simon had been the one to go after Jace, and save him, and bring him home.

“Izzy said you wanted to see me,” Simon said, and Alec realised that he’d been staring after all. Simon was clearly uncomfortable. Was he worried that the longer this visit lasted, the higher the risk of seeing Jace? Or just self-conscious of his new scars? Alec had some vague idea that mundanes cared about stuff like that. “If she was wrong... I can go.”

“No,” Alec said quickly, “she wasn’t. I asked her to tell you.”

Simon looked at him. The light gleamed on his glasses, and his eyes were unreadable. “Why?”

“Because I had to say thank you.” This, now—this was simple, simple and certain as stone. “You saved my _parabatai_ , and the Cup. It’s not in me to pretend that you didn’t.”

“And your life.”

Alec blinked. “What?”

Simon was frowning; speculative, sharp. His gaze suddenly seemed piercing, like twin bolts from a crossbow. “I saved your life as well.”

Alec nodded quickly. “You did,” he agreed. “I’m grateful for that too. Thank you.”

“That wasn’t why I said it,” Simon said dismissively. He was still watching Alec, like... “You only mentioned Jace and the Cup. In that order. Like you were rating them by order of importance.”

Alec bristled. “Jace _is_ more important than the Cup.”

Simon just looked at him, raising his eyebrows sardonically, and Alec tried not to flush. Because of course Simon thought so too, had fought and killed and bled to prove it.

“I’m just wondering,” Simon said softly, “why your life didn’t even make it onto your list. Not even in third place.”

 _Because it’s not important._ Alec didn’t say it, but Simon nodded as if he had, as if something finally made sense.

That couldn’t be true, though. Simon couldn’t have figured it out. Alec had been keeping his secret from everyone who knew him since he was ten—his parents, his sister, even his _parabatai_. There was no way that Simon—who had entered their world not quite two weeks ago—could possibly have put the pieces together when no one else had.

“I’m grateful,” he repeated firmly. “I think you’re insane, Simon, and I don’t know if I like you. But I respect you, and if—if you ever need my help, you only have to ask.”

He saw Simon swallow hard. “Thank you,” he said clumsily, the words like pebbles on his tongue. “I... Thanks, Alec.” He cleared his throat. “I, um, I actually brought you something. I guess you don’t need these now if they’re letting you out of bed soon, but, I don’t know—you should have them anyway.”

He reached into his bag, bending over to hide his face and whatever was written there. When he straightened up, he had a pair of books in his hands, and his expression seemed more solid, less likely to fracture.

Alec accepted the books bemusedly, sitting up higher against the headboard so he could look them over. He quickly realised that they were arranged in the Eastern style, and turned them over: the cover was at the ‘back’, and the blurb at the ‘front’. “They read right to left?”

Simon looked surprised. “Yeah—have you seen mangas before?”

“I have no idea what mangas are,” Alec informed him.

“They’re—well, these,” Simon said as he flipped through them. “Kind of like comic books—which you don’t know either, damn. Um, they’re stories written in pictures, I guess, from Japan.”

“They’re not in Japanese,” Alec said absently. The artwork was like nothing he’d ever seen before—he was used to the illustrations in his demonology manuscripts, anatomical and carefully coloured. Those pictures were focussed on accuracy, so that a Shadowhunter would be able to recognise the subject in the real world. These were different—pretty. Alec couldn’t remember ever caring if something was pretty or not.

Jace wasn’t pretty. He was beautiful.

He felt a pang of guilt for thinking that right next to Simon.

Who was staring at him. “You know Japanese?” he blurted.

How else was he supposed to read about ushi-oni or obake? The translations always missed things. “I can read it,” Alec murmured, turning pages. “I don’t speak it very well.”

As he took in the pictures on the new page he froze, stunned. And then hurriedly snapped the book shut, jerking his head up to meet Simon’s gaze. He could feel heat rising in his cheeks. “What...?”

Abruptly, Simon grinned. “Yeah. _Crimson Spell_ is... I thought you might like it.”

“Why would you...?” Alec glanced down at the (closed) books. Volumes 1 and 2 of _Crimson Spell_ , whatever that meant, looked back at him. “What?”

“They’re not instruction manuals or anything.” Simon’s voice had gentled a little: Alec couldn’t look at him. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips where they touched the books. “And if a hot guy turns into a demon, you probably shouldn’t have sex with him without asking. That’s not very cool. But... The story’s about a warrior and a wizard. So.”

Alec’s head snapped up. Simon was grinning. “Or a warrior and a warlock,” Simon said lightly. “If you prefer.”

Heat was rising into Alec’s cheeks: he focussed hard on not looking over at the glass poppet on the bedside table. “What the hell are you implying?” he snapped.

Simon held his hands up in surrender. “Look—I know you maybe don’t like me, and I’m not totally sure I like you either. But that’s irrelevant. You like guys, and I don’t think you have anybody else who knows about this stuff. Right?” He didn’t wait for Alec to answer. “So...even if we don’t like each other... You can always ask me questions. If you have any. I won’t make fun or anything, I promise. But since you don’t have the internet—I’m just guessing here, but considering how you guys don’t even have a TV—if you have questions you can ask, okay? That’s all I wanted to say.”

Alec didn’t answer for a moment, struggling with the urge to throw the books in Simon’s face and order him to get out. Instead, he deliberately said the one thing sure to make Simon have a fit. “What’s the internet?”

“You—you—” Simon spluttered. _“Please tell me you’re joking.”_  

Alec shrugged, hiding a smile. “It’s something like the akashic records, isn’t it?” he asked deliberately vaguely.

“The _what?”_

Alec swiped his thumb over the cover of volume 2. “Could you do something for me?” he asked quickly, before he could lose his nerve.

“That probably depends...” Simon sounded wary.

“Could you get my phone?” Alec stubbornly kept his eyes on the books. “I’d ask Izzy, but...”

_She’d never let me live it down._

Alec didn’t have to look to know that Simon was smiling again. “I guess that’s within my purview as Fairy Godmother,” he drawled. “Emphasis on _fairy_. Sure. Just tell me where it is.”

What did the fae have to do with it?

Simon only looked more nervous as Alec gave him directions to his room; his smile grew strained, but he didn’t renege on his agreement, just promised to be back soon and left Alec to his own devices.

Afraid of seeing Jace?

Probably, Alec thought. And why not? Alec couldn’t imagine what Simon was feeling right now. Alec didn’t even know how _he_ felt about it, the terrible revelation that Simon and Jace were brothers. When he’d first heard, his reaction had been relief: maybe now Jace would come to his senses and get over this strangely intense love affair.

But that relief had only lasted a few seconds, because Jace was bleeding. Oh, not on the outside—he’d passed through Renwicks without so much as a scratch. But that changed nothing. Jace’s loss and misery bled through the _parabatai_ bond every second of the day as if someone had stabbed him in the heart, and at night it only grew worse. The only times Jace felt anything sweet was in his dreams, but he barely slept; restless and troubled, and the horrible, crushing tragedy of waking up to reality every few hours tore Alec out of his own sleep and ripped his breath away.

No, the relief hadn’t lasted long. Alec wished that they had never found out, wished that someone had cut Valentine’s throat before he’d had time to spill forth his revelation like venom, or blood. Alec would rather see his _parabatai_ with Simon than feel how much missing him hurt.

That was what real love meant.

He heard Simon’s footsteps in the hall, quick and harried, but Simon relaxed as he stepped into the Infirmary, which was safely Jace-free. And Alec knew that he had to say something.

“Thanks,” he told Simon as he accepted his phone. He flipped it open and closed as his stomach twisted into a knot. “Do you really think avoiding Jace will help?” he blurted.

Simon stiffened. “Excuse me?” He rubbed at his wrist, covered by his jacket sleeve. “I would have thought you, of all people, would have wanted me to stay away from him.”

“I want Jace to be happy,” Alec snapped. “He’s my _parabatai_ , but I can’t shield him from this, and it’s killing me.” He bit his tongue. “It’s killing _him_. He’s just—hurting and hurting, and I don’t know how to make it stop. I would do _anything_ to make it stop. Anything. But there’s nothing I can do. There’s no rune to heal a broken heart, there’s no spell—my world can’t help him, do you understand?”

“Neither can mine.” Simon looked at his hands. “Mundanes haven’t figured out how to fix hearts either.”

“You’re not a mundane,” Alec said. “I heard about Renwicks, Simon. And maybe you’re not a Shadowhunter either, maybe you’re standing on the line between—but maybe someone who straddles both worlds can do what the rest of us can’t.”

“And what’s that?” Simon asked sharply. “Fix Jace? He’s not broken.”

Alec counted to ten. “No, he’s not. But I can’t help him. It’s you he needs, so— _do something.”_

“Like what?” Simon’s eyes glittered, cold and fierce. “You think I should kiss it better?”

“Yes. No! I don’t know.” Alec didn’t want to think about it, about what Jace and Simon had done together, what they still wanted to do. They were brothers, and Alec’s heart still hurt from knowing that Jace had chosen someone else. “Just—do _something_. Reach out to him. Please. I’m not sure he can stand not having you in his life.”

He didn’t quite choke on the words. They were like glass shards in his throat, but he didn’t choke.

Simon stared at him for a while. “I’m going to go,” he said finally. Quietly. “Thanks for the talk, Alec. I really am glad you’re okay.” He stood up, swinging his bag over his shoulder. “You really should call Magnus, you know.”

Alec breathed in deeply. “You really should call Jace,” he parried.

Simon nodded slowly. “You’re a good friend,” he said softly.

And before Alec could ask him what he meant—a good friend to Jace, or to him, to Simon—Simon turned and vanished out the door.

*

A Brother Zachariah came to see Alec a few hours later, and after a scrutinising check-up gave Alec permission to get out of bed at last. Alec was only too happy to do so. Another day, and he would probably have set the damn cot on fire.

He wanted to go and find Jace, tell him about his talk with Simon. But Jace felt like concrete through their bond, hard and cold and unwelcoming, and Alec knew from years of experience that there was no talking Jace around when he was like this. He lashed out when he was hurt, as though he thought that pain somehow made him weak, vulnerable.

Maybe Valentine had taught him that. It seemed like the kind of senseless cruelty such a man would drum into a child.

Alec flipped his phone open. Closed. Hid the _Crimson Spell_ books in the secret compartment in his closet. Flipped the phone open again.

He’d told Simon to reach out. Shouldn’t he take his own advice?

Open. Closed.

Open.

He dialled the number from memory and lifted the phone to his ear.

It only rang twice before it _clicked_ as the call connected. “Magnus Bane.”

In a burst of panic, Alec slammed the phone shut and flung it across the room. It landed on the bed, where it bounced once before going still.

His heart was racing. It was always calm and steady when he was hunting, but now his blood was roaring in his ears like a neades demon, until he thought his ribcage might split in two.

He made himself breathe deeply and calmly, waiting out the surge of adrenalin. Alright. Not the phone, then. It was better this way; he was a Shadowhunter, not a wordsmith. Jace might be able to talk gravity into letting him fly, but Alec was better with actions than words.

He would have this conversation face to face.

*

Alec was a strategist, but he had no experience with this kind of battlefield. He knew of no way to prepare: Jace had cheekbones like knives and eyes that took your breath away like a blow, but Alec had no weapons to sharpen or holster. So he waited until his pulse was smooth and regular again, and then he left.

On the subway, glamoured into invisibility in a nearly empty car, Alec had the sense of travelling deeper into the unknown, trespassing on some wild animal’s territory. It was like and unlike the frission of awareness that came with entering another Shadowhunter’s private space, but it was ridiculous: he couldn’t breach Magnus’ territory, because he’d always been in it.

There had been plenty of time to read while he was bedridden, and now he was all too aware of what he’d forgotten before: exactly what the title High Warlock actually _meant._ Did Jace know, Alec wondered? It had never come up in class; Alec had read about it for the first time in a scroll lying forgotten and dusty in the Institute’s library, and the second time in a book of his own notes.

His injuries were still tender; Alec favoured them automatically but without tenderness, thinking hard. He had not been able to discover the meaning of the sigils on Magnus’ lamen, but that might only be because he hadn’t had the resources—every book he’d read while bedridden had had to be brought to him. Maybe, he thought, playing absent-mindedly with the wreath of beads wrapped around his wrist, he should have waited until he’d interpreted the lamen before taking this step...

But then it was his stop, and he didn’t know what to do except get out and start walking.

The world seemed so empty: the street was completely deserted, despite the bright sunshine. Or maybe because of it? Warlocks usually preferred not to live surrounded by Downworlders, but maybe High Warlocks were different. Maybe Magnus had allowed a Downworlder neighbourhood to spring up around him—one that was sleeping away the daylight.

Or avoiding a lone Shadowhunter, Alec thought. He stared at the Magnus’ buzzer for a moment, rubbing at his bracelet—before he breathed in deeply, made sure the beads were hidden under his sleeve, and pressed the button.

As with the phone, Magnus responded almost instantly. “WHO CALLS UPON THE HIGH WARLOCK?” his voice boomed.

Alec breathed in deeply. “Alec Lightwood.”

There was a pause, a silence thick with surprise. But the only answer was the whining _ping_ of the door being unlocked, and Alec pushed it open without waiting to see if Magnus would say anything more.

The stairs were dark and dusty. Alec tried to ignore the tension that reminded him of walking into a demon’s lair.

It became much, much easier to do so when he reached the second floor, and found Magnus waiting for him.

The warlock was leaning against the doorframe, and it wasn’t that he glittered and sparkled, because this time he didn’t: instead of his loud, defiant party-clothes Magnus was dressed pretty normally. And yet he still shone. His skin glowed against his black t-shirt, and he might have just risen from a tryst; his feline eyes were hooded and sleepy, his black hair standing up in messy spikes that Alec wanted to touch, just to see if they were as soft as they looked. Whereas the dark blue jeans made his mouth go dry, hung so low, framing the sleek lines of Magnus’ hips.

Alec caught himself wondering what those beautiful hipbones would feel like against his palms, and dropped his gaze hurriedly.

This must be what fairy fruit tasted like, once it was on your tongue: this sweet, breathless craving, and the utter surety that you were damned.

“Alexander Lightwood,” Magnus said. There was the ghost of an accent there, or maybe many accents; a liquid ripple of sound whispering around the edges of the words. Silk and spice and hard, white sunlight. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He was a Shadowhunter, and Magnus was no Abbadon. Alec put his fear away like a coat in warm weather. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”

Magnus crossed his arms over the sequins spelling ONE MILLION DOLLARS on his shirt. His eyes gleamed in the dim light just like a cat’s as they looked Alec up and down. “Well, all right then,” he decided abruptly. Without another word he turned and vanished back into his apartment; after a beat, Alec followed him.

Magnus’ home looked very different when it wasn’t stuffed full of Downworlders. There seemed to be more space, and the bar and stage were gone. Instead the loft had been divided into several little areas by groupings of furniture. With a wave of his hand Magnus gestured for Alec to take a seat in the ‘sitting room’, and flung himself down on an ottoman before Alec could move.

Alec gingerly sat down on a velvet sofa whose golden softness tried to swallow him.

“Would you like some tea?” Magnus asked. It was hard to tell, but he seemed amused.

“No thank you,” Alec said firmly. He had not come here for tea.

Magnus nodded while Alec was realising that turning down the drink had been a mistake: it would have given him something to do with his hands. “So,” he said. “Why are you here?”

This was where Jace would have woven magic with his quicksilver tongue, and his grin, and the relaxed shape of his shoulders. But Jace wasn’t here, and even if he had been, this wasn’t the kind of fight Alec’s _parabatai_ could help him with. “I wanted to thank you,” he said carefully. “For saving my life.” Because not thinking it was important—as important as Jace, as the Mortal Cup—didn’t mean that he was blind to the effort Magnus had put into saving it. Effort that Magnus had not needed to expend, but had anyway.

“You wanted to thank me,” Magnus repeated. If he had been amused, he was no longer; he stared at Alec as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Yes.” Alec really, really wished he had accepted the tea. “I was delirious, and then you were asleep, and then you were gone, and—I don’t think I really thanked you. I know you didn’t have to do it. So—thank you.”

Magnus propped his head on one hand. As he moved, the hem of his shirt rode up over his stomach, and Alec’s eyes dropped to the smooth skin before he could stop them. “You’re...welcome?”

Alec looked away quickly. His fingers were trembling; he pushed his hands under his thighs, hiding them, but he wondered if Magnus could see the bullet-fire beat of his pulse at his throat. “And I had a question for you,” he blurted. “About the poppet.”

Magnus looked at him for—it felt like a long time. It probably wasn’t, but it felt like it; Alec kept his gaze on the floor, unwilling to see the warlock’s face, terrified of reading what might be written there.

“And what is your question, Shadowhunter?” Magnus asked at last. His voice was surprisingly gentle.

Could he see how petrified Alec was? Alec swallowed. “The catnip,” he said hoarsely. He really wished he’d taken the tea; his throat felt too tight, dry as ashes. Every word was basalt between his lips. “In the poppet. What is it for?”

“Ah, that.” Magnus flicked a bit of lint off the ottoman. “It has quite a few uses, actually. The leaves can be pressed and used as bookmarks in magical texts, if you can believe it—our books burn up most bookmarks like your Marks burn normal paper.” He shrugged. “In spells—protection, healing, the summoning of luck—”

“I know all that,” Alec broke in, and Magnus blinked, clearly surprised. Alec didn’t blame him; he’d surprised himself, interrupting like that. “I just wanted to know if you meant it as part of a healing spell or a—a love charm.”

Magnus said nothing for a moment. There was something complex going on behind those eyes, and he gazed at Alec now with speculative interest. “How does one of the Nephilim know about herbal magic?” he asked finally.

Alec shrugged. “I study.”

“Your friend Jace said that you fall asleep in class.”

“Because I’m studying when I’m supposed to be sleeping,” Alec explained. “And I only sleep in history. I almost never need history.”

“But you need herbal magic?” Magnus pounced. “How very...interesting. What else do you know, I wonder?”

Alec tried not to squirm in his seat. He didn’t know how to feel about the way Magnus was looking at him—as if the warlock were seeing him for the first time, really seeing him. Why had he said that bit about the studying? Nobody knew that. Alec had never told anyone before. “I know what High Warlock means,” he blurted.

Magnus smiled. “Do you?” The line of his lips was non-committal, indulgent—but his eyes were suddenly sharp.

And suddenly Alec remembered how the demons had fled in terror from Magnus, how the realm between had echoed with their screams as they burned. Abruptly he felt as though he were standing over a precipice—one far deeper and darker even than his real purpose for coming today. “It means a warlock who controls a nexus,” he said carefully.

Magnus said nothing for a moment: he stared unblinkingly at Alec, and Alec had no idea what thoughts were passing behind those eyes, but they made him wish for a seraph blade. “Accurate enough,” he said finally. “I wasn’t aware the Nephilim paid such close attention to warlock affairs.”

It sounded like a warning.

Alec shook his head. “They don’t,” he admitted. “We never covered it in class. I read about it on my own in an old scroll.” He grimaced, remembering. “It took me a week to translate it. And I still have no idea what a nexus is.”

Magnus grinned, and abruptly the shadow of tension in the room dissipated like mist in sunlight. “It’s a place where two or more ley lines cross. And to answer your original question—I used both of those properties in your poppet’s catnip, and a few more besides.”

It took Alec a moment to remember: healing spell and love charm.

“But I didn’t compel you, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Magnus continued. “Love spells—”

“—can’t force or create love, yes, I know.” He had never considered that Magnus might be trying to force or control him. Even if he hadn’t known how the magic worked, he wouldn’t have thought that.

  Magnus’ eyebrows rose higher. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” But he didn’t look unhappy about it. He looked interested.

Was that a good thing?

“You’re correct, though,” Magnus said. “Love spells can only call love to you, or encourage what’s already there.” He tilted his head. “You’re really not what I expected,” he said suddenly.

Alec blinked. “From a Shadowhunter?”

“Well, that too,” Magnus allowed. “Most of you are pig-ignorant when it comes to magic. But I meant—not what I expected from a Lightwood.”

“I didn’t realise you knew my family.”

“I’ve known your family for hundreds of years,” Magnus said. “Now, your sister, she’s a Lightwood. You—”

Alec’s gut felt like a gorgon nest, and if he didn’t say it now he would turn to stone. “She said you liked me.”

Magnus paused. “Pardon?”

“Izzy.” The snakes were writhing. Hissing. “My sister. She told me you liked me. _Liked_ me, liked me.”

 _“Liked_ you, liked you?” Magnus’ grin slid across his face like honey. ~~~~

“And I think Simon was trying to say it too,” Alec said. Snakes. Snakes and wasps. “That you liked me. And that I should just tell you that I like you too, even though I’m not sure what to do about it, or how—how guys do it, or anything. But I’d like to find out. With you. If you want to.” He took a deep breath. “Do you? Want to go out with me?”

Magnus blinked, that cat-like gesture of surprise that Alec already thought was, maybe, kind of adorable. It reminded him of Church, and even that tiny bit of familiarity made him feel a little better, a little safer.

Church had known that Alec liked boys before anyone else, and he’d never judged him for it.

Magnus sighed, and sat up on the ottoman. “Come here, Alec.” He patted the cushion next to him.

“What—? I, uh, okay?” Except that his hands were still shaking, and Magnus hadn’t actually _answered_ him yet, which probably meant no, Magnus wasn’t interested, and who could blame him, anyway, and Alec should just go, now, before this got any worse—

Magnus was looking at him. “It’s all right,” he said. His voice had gone terribly gentle again, and Alec couldn’t make sense of the look in his eyes until he realised that they were undemanding, that there were no expectations or demands in them, and Alec felt so relieved and ashamed that he thought he might be sick.

He felt like a new-born colt, crossing the space between the sofas, and didn’t so much sit on the ottoman as fall on it.

“Why do you want to go out with me?” Magnus asked.

Alec stared at the ground, his hands clasped as he tried to find the words—

_Because you wear sequins and glitter and you’re so brave, you don’t care what anyone thinks of you and I want to be brave like that, I want to learn how to be brave like that. Because you do the right thing even when it’s hard, even when you don’t have to, you didn’t have to save my life but you did it anyway and you were so strong, so beautiful, the demons ran from you and you kept the darkness away. Because I like your hands and your eyes and your hips and your hair, and thinking about touching you is like being hit by lightning but I don’t want it to stop, and, I just—_

“I just do,” Alec said lamely. Wishing, not for the first time, that he could learn Jace’s trick of dropping diamonds and pearls from his lips. But Alec’s thoughts stubbornly remained tangled, useless straw, refusing to be spun into smooth gold. So he offered up the straw instead, not knowing what else to do. “And I thought you liked me, so you’d say yes, and I could try—” _Could try getting over Jace, because he’ll never be mine, not even now Simon’s his brother; he’ll never look at me and see and it hurts but I want, I want someone who looks at me and sees—_

“I mean, _we_ could try—” Raziel, he was making such a mess of this! He put his head in his hands, unable to meet Magnus’ eyes any longer. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“Does anyone know you’re gay?” Magnus asked gently.

Alec’s head snapped up. For a wild moment, he nearly denied it all: but it was too late for that. “Izzy,” he said. His voice was hoarse; his lungs felt tight. “And Simon, somehow.” Not knowing how Simon had figured it out had given him nightmares. How had he slipped up, given himself away? What if his parents saw, or Jace? Even though Jace had—even though Jace wasn’t straight anymore, the thought of his _parabatai_ knowing brought a wave of cold terror with it.

“Not your parents? Not Jace?”

“No,” Alec said sharply. _Breathe, Lightwood,_ he told himself. “I don’t want them to know.”

“That’s your decision,” Magnus agreed. “You don’t have to tell anyone you don’t want to.”

A little of the tension eased out of Alec’s body, like hard steel suddenly turning molten and dripping away.

He was almost able to breathe by the time Magnus said, “My mother never knew I was a boy.”

Alec’s gaze jerked up from the floor, and he forgot to be nervous as he stared at Magnus’ face. “What?”

Magnus shrugged. “She hanged herself when I was very young, before I learned the spells I needed.” He saw Alec’s confusion. “My body was born female,” he explained—blithely, as though it were nothing. “When I was fourteen, I fixed it, but my mother was gone by then.”

 _I fixed it_. As if changing genders was of as much consequence as changing clothes.

Probably less, considering Magnus’ outfits.

“Oh.” Alec wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry. About your mother.”

Magnus stared at him, and Alec wondered what was wrong, if maybe he shouldn’t have said anything.

“Thank you,” Magnus said after a beat. “You’re awfully polite for a Shadowhunter, you know. It keeps surprising me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?”

 _“Yes,”_ Alec said firmly. He’d learned from his mistake the first time. “That would be—nice. Thank you.”

He thought Magnus would go over to the kitchen area, would pour water and turn on a kettle and give them both a break for a minute. Instead, there was a soft _pop_ of displaced air, and suddenly Magnus was holding a paper cup of something steaming.

There was another on the table in front of Alec. In white text on a red circle, above a silhouette of coffee grounds, it said _Costa Coffee_.

“What is this?”

“It’s coffee,” Magnus said. “You know. Caffeine? _Coffea Arabica?_ Do Nephilim not drink coffee? Because that would explain a great deal about your grumpy dispositions.” His mouth grinned into the rim of his cup. “Present company excluded, of course.”

Alec shot him a look. “I know what coffee is,” he said wryly. “But I’ve never heard of Costa.”

“That’s because it’s British. And, for the record, superior to Starbucks.”

“But then how did you—wait.”

Magnus’ grin widened. “I can _see_ the gears turning in his mind,” he told no one in particular.

“Did you _steal_ this coffee?” Alec demanded.

“You are adorable when scandalised,” Magnus told him, “but no. I wouldn’t dare!” he protested to Alec’s suspicious expression. “Tessa would have my head if she caught me poaching. I put money in the cash register, I promise.”

Alec frowned at him, but he was also trying not to laugh, and he picked up the coffee cup. When the taste smoothed over his tongue, he realised that Magnus had done that on purpose; broken the tension, made him laugh. He’d managed to give them a break after all.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Alec admitted quietly. He hunched over, resting his elbows on his knees. The warmth of the coffee seeped into his palms. “I’m sorry if I’m—if this is wrong.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong.” Gentle, but firm. Alec took a sip of his drink so he wouldn’t have to look up. “Alec, did you _tell_ your sister, or did she figure it out for herself?”

“She just—she knew.” The coffee seemed hotter, suddenly; hotter because Alec was colder, had turned to ice beneath the skin. “And Simon. I don’t know how either of them found out.”

“So I’m the first person you’ve actually told?” Magnus asked gently.

It was a pretty nice floor, Magnus’ floor.

Alec nodded thickly.

“What made you want to tell me?”

Alec toyed with the plastic lid of his cup. “I found—last year, I found an old Codex in the library. At the Institute.” He paused. “You know what the Codex is, right?”

“I do,” Magnus said mildly.

“It was an old edition. Really old.” Alec remembered the softness of the cover under his hands, the thin, brittle pages. “I mean, it was printed, but I think someone had made a printed copy of an even older manuscript.”

“All right.” There was no impatience in Magnus’ voice, just a calm sort of waiting.

Alec swallowed. “I read it.” _Obviously_ , what a stupid thing to say, Magnus was going to think he was such an idiot—

“It said that the first _agela_ was—they were gay,” Alec blurted. “Or bi, maybe, most of them, I don’t know.” Like Simon. Like Jace, because Jace liked girls too, didn’t he? He used to. Alec didn’t know if his _parabatai_ still did; there hadn’t been a good moment to ask. “The Firstborn—Jonathan Shadowhunter, and David the Silent, and Peter Herondale—Thomas Wayland—Simon Morgenstern—”

He stopped, remembering that there was another Simon Morgenstern now.

Magnus waited.

Alec inhaled. “They teach us that Abigail Shadowhunter and the other women—” Margaret Fairchild, Eva Blackthorn, Helen Makepeace; there hadn’t been many warrior women in western Europe when William the Conqueror landed in Britain, but there had been a few, “bound them into an _agela_. That the women were the _parastathentes_. And they were, but they weren’t the only ones.”

Jonathan and David had been _parabatai_ —but at four in the morning, after a long night on patrol when he was meant to be sleeping, Alec had read that Jonathan was _parastathentes_ not just to Margaret, but to Peter, too.

“So I thought—I thought maybe that meant it was okay.” He had to force the words out around the lump in his throat. “Maybe. I—and Jace is, he was, so _happy_. I couldn’t see how it could be wrong, when it made him so happy.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes, his chest tight, a vise around his lungs. “But Jace and Simon are brothers, so it wasn’t all right after all. And I’m not Jonathan Shadowhunter, I’m nobody, so—”

“You’re not nobody.” Swift as the slash of a knife; Alec froze at the fierce heat in Magnus’ voice. “Whatever you do, whatever you believe—believe that. You are _not_ nobody.”

“I’m—” Alec’s mouth was bone-dry; he raised his cup to his lips for something to do, something to cover the awful dagger of shame twisting in his ribcage. “It doesn’t matter,” he said when he’d swallowed his gulp of cooling coffee. He tried to make his tone dismissive, as smoothly blithe as Magnus had been talking of his past. “It—”

_“Alec.”_

There was no disobeying that voice; Alec’s head snapped up and found Magnus’ eyes blazing, all jade and amber, the feline pupils narrowed to angry slashes of ink.

“Your sister went to pieces like a jigsaw puzzle when you were hurt,” Magnus said. “She threatened to burn my apartment building to the ground if I didn’t come and save you. Your _parabatai_ refused to give your Silent Brothers the Mortal Cup unless they came and healed you. No one who inspires that much love is _nobody_ , but even if you had no one, you would still be worth something to the world. You would still be the Shadowhunter who’s ashamed of the Uprising and tells a warlock ‘thank you’; you would still be able to recognise an obscure magical herb and understand love spells, which, for the record, I could count the Nephilim who know as much of magic as you do on the fingers of one hand and have fingers left over. You would still be the one who’s uncovered one of the Clave’s deepest secrets—yes, I know about Jonathan’s _agela_ , and I promise you don’t know the half of it yet—and you would still be a young man brave enough to come here today and tell a stranger something that would get him killed at home.”

The words struck Alec like stones. _Killed._ Magnus didn’t try to downplay it, didn’t say _disinherited_ or _exiled_.

_Killed._

Because he wouldn’t be Alec anymore if he wasn’t a Shadowhunter. And Magnus understood that.

“You are not _nobody,”_ Magnus said. “You are not _nothing._ You are alive. You have a soul. That’s all you need to be priceless.”

Priceless.

The logo on the coffee cup had grown blurry; Alec blinked, trying to clear his eyes and ignore the hot fist tight around his throat, and the sandpaper-rasp of each breath as that one word _(priceless)_ tumbled down into the dark silence behind his heart like a gold coin fallen down a well with a wish, a wish bigger than a whole world—

His hand was shaking again; Alec carefully set the cup down on the coffee table before he could spill his drink, and it was as if he’d swallowed hot coals—

 _Priceless_ —

“You idiot Nephilim.” Spoken so softly. Alec heard the dull sound of Magnus putting his own cup down. “Come here—”

“I’m sorry,” Alec gasped, ducking his head—hiding the stupid, _pathetic_ tears—“I’m, I’m fine—”

“Unless you have a problem with hugs, I am about to hug you, you unbelievable—”

A hand brushed his shoulder and something in Alec snapped like a bone; he flinched away from the touch and Magnus whipped his hand back instantly.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus said, but Alec didn’t want to hear it; as quickly as Magnus tried to apologise Alec realised there was no pain in the contact and sought it desperately. He was eighteen, an adult Shadowhunter Marked and sworn, but he turned into Magnus’ warmth like something small and weak and felt himself broken open, felt himself breaking and bleeding and it was Abbadon all over again—

And Magnus drew out the poison. His hands and his soft, soothing voice cast just the same spell as before, and he called the venom out, black and awful, from Alec’s eyes. It hurt just as much as it had the first time, all fire and ice raging in his lungs, and Alec clung to him, afraid of drowning, afraid of the dark, holding to Magnus as he used to hold Fenrir the wolf—

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasped into Magnus’ shirt, shaking, bleeding salt and venom. “I’m s-sorry—”

“It’s okay,” Magnus whispered, his lips almost against Alec’s hair. “Ssh, _buah hatiku,_ ssh…”

It made no sense, but the softness made it worse, tore at some secret weakness in him and strengthened the storm of tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt anything so gentle, the last time he’d heard another person’s heartbeat or felt the warmth of someone else’s living skin. The only times Shadowhunters touched was to spar or heal and neither was like this, training with Jace wasn’t like this; it was as if he’d been so cold for so long that he’d forgotten what warmth felt like, been left empty until he forgot what it was to be full and whole. Alec felt _warm_ against Magnus’ chest, and it hurt, it hurt so much worse than anything ever had, worse than Abbadon, some frostbitten core of him warming up and cracking alive and by the Angel, he never, ever wanted it to stop.

If he could just lie here with another person’s arms to hold him, he would never want to move.

But eventually, he had to. Bit by bit the war under his skin eased enough for the real world to gradually return. The racking shudders slowed, then stopped altogether. Beneath his cheek, the warlock’s shirt was soaked, and once he realised it Alec’s stomach roiled with humiliation. By the Angel, what had he _done_ —crying like an _athumos_ at their first Mark—Raziel, his parents would be ashamed to claim him if they saw him like this; what Magnus must think of him…

He felt Magnus shift a little. “Feel better?” he asked quietly.

He would ask Alec to leave soon. After that, who could blame him? He would be polite about it, nice about it, but why would anyone want to keep someone like Alec around?

 _“Next time, do leave the Shadowhunters at home,” Magnus told Simon. “Except for_ that _one. He can come any time.” He pointed a shining fingernail at Alec, and one gleaming cat-eye winked. “Call me?”_

Magnus had probably just been trying to mess with the idiot Shadowhunters who’d nearly ruined his party, but…

Before he could talk himself out of it, Alec leaned up and pressed their lips together, because maybe this, maybe this could be enough to make Magnus want to keep him—

Magnus froze, the living warmth of him becoming mannequin-stiff against Alec’s body; his hands were still around Alec’s back and Alec’s heart was pounding so hard it threatened to break, to shatter into an explosion of tiny shards. He had no idea what to do, wished he’d taken a proper look at the books Simon had given him; he was terrible at this, useless even at the thing which made him wrong—

Magnus’ hands found Alec’s shoulders—and pushed him away, not roughly, but unmistakably firmly. “What are you doing?”

Alec’s mouth was dry. “I thought—I wanted to say sorry—”

“For what?” Before Alec could answer, comprehension swept across Magnus’ face. “For _crying?”_

“I—”

“You _kissed_ me as an _apology?”_ Magnus looked appalled—and concerned. “Why would you do that?”

Alec didn’t know how to answer. He looked down at his hands, sickened. His face was still damp, but beneath the tear-tracks his cheeks burned, humiliated and idiotic. “I wanted—” He stopped.

“Yes?” Magnus asked. “What did you want?”

Alec took a deep breath. “I wanted you to keep me,” he said quickly, without looking up.

“And you thought—?” Suddenly Magnus paled. He rose abruptly, pushing Alec back into the sofa. “I’m going to be sick.”

But Magnus didn’t rush for the bathroom, wherever it was in his apartment. Instead he paced, frenetic and awful, thoughts flashing across his face too quickly for Alec to read. Alec curled into himself on the sofa, drawing his legs in close to his chest. He desperately wanted to leave the scene of this horrific embarrassment, but he didn’t quite dare to try getting past the pacing warlock.

Who suddenly swung around and sank to his knees in front of Alec. Alec started, but didn’t move, hooked by the fierce intensity in Magnus’ face.

“Listen to me, Alec,” Magnus said. “You don’t _ever_ have to trade sex for love. I don’t know what the Nephilim are teaching their children these days, but you are worth _far_ more than your body. You’re ridiculously beautiful, I would be a liar if I claimed otherwise, but you could be bright green with horns and still deserve to be loved, just because you’re you. You don’t have to pay people to—to love you. Ever. Do you understand?” He smiled a little. “Your body is a gift you bestow on those who are damn well worthy of it. No one else.”

Alec’s mind was whirling. “You think I’m beautiful?” he blurted.

“Do they not have mirrors at the Institute?” Magnus demanded. “Of course I do. A blind Confucian would think you’re pretty.” He squinted at Alec. “Did you get anything else out of my little monologue?”

Alec was still sifting it for meaning, cataloguing and cross-indexing every premise. “I do think you’re worthy of it, though,” he said softly.

For a long moment, Magnus just stared at him. Then he sighed. “Alec… Do you even like me?”

A memory flashed, like the glint of light on a blade; Magnus’ lamen shining like a star above Alec’s sickbed, guiding him home through the pain.

“Yes,” Alec said simply. “I like you.”

Magnus’ eyes flicked to his. Alec set his jaw and met Magnus’ gaze without flinching. It was a hard gaze to hold: not because of the strangeness of the slitted pupils—they were beautiful—but because Magnus was looking at him with a complicated expression, some mixture of fond curiosity and intrigued puzzlement that sent nervous sparks through Alec’s veins.

And something warmer. Other. Something harder to name, but that fizzed like champagne in the pit of his stomach.

Something white flashed in the corner of his vision and Alec’s hand snapped to his hip for a knife that wasn’t there. But it was only a cat, emerging from beneath the golden sofa with a soft, furry wiggle—only to immediately pretend that the warlock and guest hadn’t seen the undignified manoeuvre. Gracefully, it hopped up from the floor onto the ottoman, and Alec relaxed as it began to purr, demandingly nudging its silky head under his hand until he found himself stroking it.

“Chairman Meow likes you,” Magnus declared.

“I can see that.” Carefully, Alec picked up the small cat; it purred even louder as he settled it in its lap. “I like him too.”

For a while, the only sound was the Chairman’s pleased rumbling. Magnus stayed on the floor, but Alec was able to bear it; he kept his gaze on the cat, and gradually felt himself relax into the rhythm of the petting. Church had him well-trained, and he knew just how to scratch and stroke to a cat’s exacting standards.

“You kept it,” Magnus said suddenly.

Alec looked up at him. “I’m sorry?”

Magnus nodded at Alec’s wrist. Where Alec’s sleeve had ridden up, a glint of gold and green was just visible around his wrist; the colours of the warlock’s eyes—or a jade witch’s ladder.

Embarrassed, Alec went to tug his sleeve down, but Magnus gently caught his hands. Alec felt the contact all the way up to his shoulders, searing up his throat. Magnus’ fingers didn’t have a Shadowhunter’s calluses, and for an instant Alec wondered what they would feel like splayed against his skin.

“Do you want it back?” Alec asked. Magnus hadn’t mentioned it in his note, but maybe he’d only forgotten.

“What? No, it’s yours. It’s no use to me now anyway; now it’s keyed to you, it can’t be used by anyone else.” Magnus was still staring at it. “I just didn’t think you’d keep it.” He smiled a little. “But we’ve already established that I was wrong to assume you’d be anything like your parents.”

 _You know my parents?_ As soon as the question formed, Alec swallowed it. He didn’t want to think of his parents right now. They would be…he couldn’t even imagine how they would react if they knew what he was doing, where he was. “I like wearing it,” he said quietly.

The words failed so utterly to say what he meant that he nearly cringed. But how was he supposed to explain? _I can touch the cool jade and know that it happened, that it was all real; the demons running from you and your voice in the dark, the light in the pain, the promise that it would be all right. You didn’t know me at all and you gave up something beyond price for me._

_You thought I was worth it and the proof is something I can touch and hold._

But Magnus nodded slowly, as if he’d heard what Alec meant instead of what he’d said. “I like that you want to wear it,” he said, just as softly. And he smiled. “Alec Lightwood,” he announced grandly, “I would most definitely like to know you better. Would you consent to going out with me on Friday?” He held up a hand. “Only say yes if you _want_ to, not because you think you need to.”

But Alec couldn’t imagine anything he wanted more. “Friday… Like a date?” Elation was a golden bubble in his chest, swelling bigger and brighter by the second until he thought he might break open from something painfully like joy.

“No,” Magnus said solemnly, and as Alec’s heart sank; “not _like_ a date, _exactly_ a date. Friday night.” The warlock’s eyebrows rose questioningly. “If you’re free?”

“I think so.” Alec tried to keep his voice even, composed, but he could feel his lips pulling upward, curving irresistibly. If he wasn’t careful, he would end up grinning like an idiot. “I’d like that.”

Magnus beamed. “Excellent. I’ll be looking forward to it.” He started to get up. “I actually have work to do today, but you can stay a little longer if you don’t want to head back yet.”

He said it so simply, as if offering a strange Shadowhunter sanctuary on his couch was nothing. As if he understood how complicated such a thing as a home could be, how it felt when the only place you belonged didn’t fit you at all, and automatically offered Alec a place to sit and breathe away from the pressure.

Alec desperately wanted to know how someone like this could exist. He wanted to understand Magnus the way he did his bow or his seraph blades; intrinsically, completely. Maybe then he would be able to breathe when those green-gold eyes met his.

“No, it’s okay. Thanks, but I should get home.” Alec raised his hand to bite his thumbnail, caught himself, then blurted, “Could we try kissing again?”

Magnus paused, half-off the floor.

“Never mind,” Alec said quickly, unable to believe he’d actually said that aloud. “I’m sorry, forget it. I should go. I’ll—”

“Alec,” Magnus said, “stop.”

Alec stopped.

Magnus settled back down on his knees and looked at him, and Alec suddenly wondered if Magnus wanted to take him apart, too, if he felt the same need to understand Alec’s composite parts that Alec felt for him. “Do you actually want to,” Magnus asked, “or do you feel like you have to offer to keep me interested?”

Alec swallowed. He glanced down at Chaiman Meow, who didn’t care about the humans’ conversation one bit so long as Alec kept petting him. Just like Church.

“Because I really don’t think I can take you touching me because you think you have to,” Magnus continued, and there was something brittle behind the blitheness, a note of terrible, chilling rage only barely contained. Alec could sense, or hear, somehow, just how fragile the door on that fury really was, and he thought again of how the demons had screamed.

“I’m sorry you’re angry,” Alec said carefully. “I didn’t mean—”

Magnus made a dismissive gesture. “I’m not angry with you, Alec. I just—” He stopped. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

It didn’t sound like nothing. But it also sounded like it wasn’t his business, so he didn’t push.

“I don’t think I have to,” Alec said quietly. He couldn’t imagine anyone treating touching Magnus like an obligation, like a chore. Like anything but something sacred. “I’d just… I’d really like to. If you want. If that’s okay.”

“It’s very okay,” Magnus said. The shadow faded from his eyes, melted away from the lines of his face. “And I’d very much like to, if that’s what you want.”

 _“Yes.”_ Alec’s voice had gone hoarse, and Magnus’ agreement seemed to have worked some glorious alchemy on him, because the nerves in Alec’s stomach were suddenly molten, liquid and warm, hot gold. Witchlight seared through him in a rush, lighting up every nerve, every cell, so that he was abruptly blindingly aware of every inch of his skin, his ankles and thighs and elbows—and his lips, his mouth, the palms of his hands.

He wanted to touch Magnus again so badly that it almost hurt.

Those gold eyes glittered, and some of it was amusement but some of it was sparks, fire, and Alec swallowed, felt his body draw tight and taut. He couldn’t move as Magnus leaned forward to pick up the cat—whose disapproval was ignored by both humans—and set him on the floor, out of the way.

“Come here,” Magnus said, and the soft husky edge of his voice shivered down Alec’s spine. He went; not doing so was abruptly impossible. All of it seemed impossible; the nameless strangeness of being so close to another person, unfolding his legs and shifting forward so his knees were on either side of Magnus’ hips, close enough to feel the warmth of living skin through Magnus’ shirt; the sudden realisation that, even kneeling, Magnus was ever so slightly taller than him, which hardly ever happened; the jittering, wide-awake energy suddenly coursing through his body, lighting him up like the Manhattan skyline; Magnus’ beauty, his velvet-sheathed muscles and his gleaming eyes and the smooth, lithe line of him that fit so achingly perfectly against Alec’s body; and most of all the moment itself, the event of it, the finger tilting his chin to Magnus’ face and Alec couldn’t _breathe_.

“This is what you want?” Magnus murmured, satin-rough, and Alec nodded once because doing anything else could not be borne.

“Yes,” he whispered, and Magnus closed the space between them and their lips met and they were _kissing._

And it was strange, for a beat; he’d imagined this a thousand times but he hadn’t known, he hadn’t _known_ , mouth to mouth and for a second it was just weird. _(Who had invented kissing, anyway, who had first thought to press lips to lips, who had come up with that and why?)_ But Magnus’ lips were soft, and the heat in the pit of Alec’s belly burst into flame and something in him wept with relief, touch-starved and shaking and _yes, yes, yes._ He could hardly think, hardly dared to breathe because any moment now Magnus would realise that Alec wasn’t good enough for him, was hopelessly incompetent at this—

Magnus’ lips parted against Alec’s, and for a moment there was warm breath that traced magma through Alec’s core—and then Magnus’ tongue slid into Alec’s mouth, gently, softly and Alec groaned at the explosion of shocked heat and hunger. It swept through him like a desert wind and his hands fell against Magnus’ waist, craving, starving, thrilling at the touch of bare, smooth skin. He splayed his fingers, drinking in the contact as Magnus jerked with surprise—but then relaxed, and Alec’s hands moved up under Magnus’ shirt, half-giddy with elation, awe, disbelief. This was allowed, he could do this, could touch, and his mind spun as he tried to control his hands and his tongue in the face of this incredible—

Magnus broke away, breathing hard. His eyes no longer reminded Alec of a cat, but of a dragon. “Are you all right?” he asked raggedly. “Do you want to stop?”

“By the Angel, why would I want to stop?” Alec asked without thinking, and Magnus’ answering grin was _incandescent_ —

Everything in him went weak as Magnus’ fingers hooked in Alec’s belt loops and tugged him closer, white-hot thrills racing through his veins; Magnus caught his lips again and Alec moaned, hips pressed into hips and the pressure-pleasure shot straight to his brain like the bolt of a crossbow. The world spun around him, melted into blurs of colour that could never compete with the lush stroking of Magnus’ tongue against his, and he didn’t know what to do, he wanted to reciprocate but couldn’t bear to stop even for a second, even to breathe—

Before he could decide what to do the kiss broke, and an entirely involuntary noise of protest spilled from Alec’s throat—almost a whimper, but there was no time for embarrassment because Magnus’ lips were gliding over Alec’s neck and Alec couldn’t remember his own name. His hands flew from Magnus’ torso to his hair, the leaf-charm from the witch’s ladder falling forward and flashing gold as Alec’s fingers tangled in the silky locks _(they were soft, just as soft as they’d looked)_ desperately to urge him on; his whole body felt liquid and molten, every cell throbbing with pleasure, and when Magnus’ teeth grazed lightly over his skin Alec pressed into him hard, biting his lip to swallow any more embarrassing sounds—

Just as Alec was about to use Raziel’s name in some truly blasphemous ways, it all stopped. Magnus released him, gently tugging himself free of Alec’s hold; the warm curve of his mouth and the amused hunger in his eyes had Alec rethinking an apology. Magnus didn’t look annoyed at all.

“That—” Alec had no words. He felt dazed. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.” Dragon eyes, hot and hungry, and Alec’s mind couldn’t process someone looking at him like that but his body knew what it meant and smouldered. “That was no chore, Alexander.”

In his mouth, Alec’s name was velvet and smoke and silk sheets, and Alec swallowed hard, trying not to stare at the man’s lips. “I’ll see you Friday?” he asked. Through some miracle, his voice did not shake.

In answer Magnus leaned forward to kiss him again. His mouth was soft against Alec’s, warm and alive and real, and he brought his hand up to cup Alec’s face, cradling his jaw like—

_Like something priceless—_

It only lasted a moment; just long enough for Alec’s pulse to melt into something approaching its normal tempo. But the warmth of it shivered down over his bones, wreathing them in sunlight and orchid vines, and when Magnus pulled away from him softly, so unspeakably gently, Alec’s breath was caught in his throat like a moth in amber.

“Without question,” Magnus murmured.

It was a tremendous effort to move—or rather, to move up and away from Magnus and towards the door; Alec wanted to fling himself at the warlock, wrap his arms around that lithe body and kiss and kiss until they both forgot how to breathe. A confused jumble of images from Simon’s manga flashed through his head, exacerbating his embarrassment and his loud, pounding desire; by the _Angel,_ he wanted to make Magnus say his name again, was sure he would light like a seraph blade in answer if he could only hear it from Magnus’ lips one more time—

Magnus helped him up, and the curve of his lips as he escorted Alec to the door suggested that he knew the younger man’s thoughts all too well. Alec was too busy weighing options and spinning thoughts like thread to be embarrassed—and when Magnus leaned against the wall next to the door, opening it with a wave of his hand and a glint of magic, Alec fisted a hand in the man’s shirt and dragged him into another kiss. It was clumsy and unpractised but it tasted like lightning, fierce and urgent, and when Alec’s palm found Magnus’ chest he felt the warlock’s heart stutter against his fingertips.

He broke off the kiss, and pulled back. It took effort not to lick his bruised, swollen lips, and not to lean in and taste Magnus’ again. “Thank you,” he said, and let Magnus go. He could feel a huge, bright grin stretching across his mouth, and couldn’t figure out how to make it stop, even as he backed out into the landing. “For all of it.”

Magnus shook his head, grinning as he crossed his arms over his now-wrinkled shirt. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Now shoo. I have work to do, and you’re far too distracting.”

He shut the door behind him, and Alec ran down the stairs two at a time with the leaf-charm shining like fire at his wrist, trying not to laugh, or scream, or sing.

 _Friday_. It sounded like a spell.

It sounded like magic.

* * *

 

NOTES

 

 _Crimson Spell_ is a manga by Ayano Yamane

The akashic records are, to my understanding, a storehouse of all knowledge, or possibly all spiritual knowledge. It is reached through meditation and/or astral projection. In Runed, the akashic records are a warlock thing that may or may not come up over the course of the series.

Neades are ancient Greek monsters native to Samos (wherever that is), whose roar could split the earth.

Alec’s thoughts about diamonds and pearls falling from his lips is a reference to the French fairytale Diamonds and Toads. The straw-into-gold line is obviously a Rumplestiltskin reference!

 _Buah hatiku_ —‘my heart’ in Indonesian. This is romantic, but nowadays it is apparently most often used to express affection for children, and that’s really the sense in which Magnus is using it here.


	36. Epilogue the Second: Old Version

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **UPDATE** : This version of Epilogue the Second should no longer be considered canon. I'm leaving it up because I don't want to delete all the amazing comments people left on it, but the new version has now been uploaded (Epilogue the Second: Canon) and is the version that should be considered canon for this series. Thank you :)
> 
> CASSIE IS AMAZING. THAT IS ALL.
> 
> No, she really is. She got this whole thing edited for me in under an hour (!!!), so KNEEL DOWN AND WORSHIP, SHE IS OFFICIALLY A GODDESS. Like it wasn't official before!
> 
> I've had no chance to upload anymore of the updated chapters; I will try and get that done this week, and will update these notes here when I have that done!
> 
> This is the penultimate update, you guys. ONE MORE. ONE MORE AND THIS FIC WILL BE COMPLETED. Are you sweating? I'm sweating...

   “Hey.”

   “Hey.” Alec watched as Simon gingerly took a seat next to the bed. “Are you...are you okay?” he asked awkwardly.

   Simon smiled. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He dropped his rucksack at his feet.

   Alec shook his head. “I’m fine. The Silent Brothers are sending someone to check me over today, and then I’ll finally be allowed out of bed.” He tried not to stare. He wasn’t sure who – what – he was looking at anymore. A few days ago he would have insisted that Simon was just a mundane playing at being a demon hunter.

   But that was before he’d saved Alec’s life, just as surely as Magnus had. That was before Simon had been the one to go after Jace, and save him, and bring him home.

   “Izzy said you wanted to see me,” Simon said, and Alec realised that he’d been staring after all. Simon was clearly uncomfortable. Was he worried that the longer this visit lasted, the higher the risk of seeing Jace? Or just self- conscious of his new scars? Alec had some vague idea that mundanes cared about stuff like that. “If she was wrong... I can go.”

   “No,” Alec said quickly, “she wasn’t. I asked her to tell you.”

   Simon looked at him. The light gleamed on his glasses, and his eyes were unreadable. “Why?”

   “Because I had to say thank you.” This, now – this was simple, simple and certain as stone. “You saved my _parabatai_ , and the Cup. It’s not in me to pretend that you didn’t.”

   “And your life.”

   Alec blinked. “What?”

   Simon was frowning; speculative, sharp. His gaze suddenly seemed piercing, like twin bolts from a crossbow. “I saved your life as well.”

   Alec nodded quickly. “You did,” he agreed. “I’m grateful for that too. Thank you.”

   “That wasn’t why I said it,” Simon said dismissively. He was still watching Alec, like... “You only mentioned Jace and the Cup. In that order. Like you were rating them by order of importance.”

   Alec bristled. “Jace _is_ more important than the Cup.”

   Simon just looked at him, raising his eyebrows sardonically, and Alec tried not to flush. Because of course Simon thought so too, had fought and killed and bled to prove it.

   “I’m just wondering,” Simon said softly, “why your life didn’t even make it onto your list. Not even in third place.”

   _Because it’s not important._ Alec didn’t say it, but Simon nodded as if he had, as if something finally made sense.

   That couldn’t be true, though. Simon couldn’t have figured it out. Alec had been keeping his secret from everyone who knew him since he was ten – his parents, his sister, even his _parabatai_. There was no way that Simon – who had entered their world not quite two weeks ago – could possibly have put the pieces together when no one else had.

   “I’m grateful,” he repeated firmly. “I think you’re insane, Simon, and I don’t know if I like you. But I respect you, and if – if you ever need my help, you only have to ask.”

   He saw Simon swallow hard. “Thank you,” he said clumsily, the words like pebbles on his tongue. “I... Thanks, Alec.” He cleared his throat. “I, um, I actually brought you something. I guess you don’t need these now if they’re letting you out of bed soon, but, I don’t know – you should have them anyway.”

   He reached into his bag, bending over to hide his face and whatever was written there. When he straightened up, he had a pair of books in his hands, and his expression seemed more solid, less likely to fracture.

   Alec accepted the books bemusedly, sitting up higher against the headboard so he could look them over. He quickly realised that they were arranged in the Eastern style, and turned them over: the cover was at the ‘back’, and the blurb at the ‘front’. “They read right to left?”

   Simon looked surprised. “Yeah – have you seen mangas before?”

   “I have no idea what mangas are,” Alec informed him.

   “They’re – well, these,” Simon said as he flipped through them. “Kind of like comic books – which you don’t know either, damn. Um, they’re stories written in pictures, I guess, from Japan.”

   “They’re not in Japanese,” Alec said absently. The artwork was like nothing he’d ever seen before – he was used to the illustrations in his demonology manuscripts, anatomical and carefully coloured. Those pictures were focussed on accuracy, so that a Shadowhunter would be able to recognise the subject in the real world. These were different – pretty. Alec couldn’t remember ever caring if something was pretty or not.

   Jace wasn’t pretty. He was beautiful.

   He felt a pang of guilt for thinking that right next to Simon.

   Who was staring at him. “You know Japanese?” he blurted.

   How else was he supposed to read about ushi-oni or obake? The translations always missed things. “I can read it,” Alec murmured, turning pages. “I don’t speak it very well.”

   As he took in the pictures on the new page he froze, stunned. And then hurriedly snapped the book shut, jerking his head up to meet Simon’s gaze. He could feel heat rising in his cheeks. “What...?”

   Abruptly, Simon grinned. “Yeah. _Crimson Spell_ is... I thought you might like it.”

   “Why would you...?” Alec glanced down at the (closed) books. Volumes 1 and 2 of _Crimson Spell_ , whatever that meant, looked back at him. “What?”

   “They’re not instruction manuals or anything.” Simon’s voice had gentled a little: Alec couldn’t look at him. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips where they touched the books. “And if a hot guy turns into a demon, you probably shouldn’t have sex with him without asking. That’s not very cool. But... The story’s about a warrior and a wizard. So.”

   Alec’s head snapped up. Simon was grinning. “Or a warrior and a warlock,” Simon said lightly. “If you prefer.”

   Heat was rising into Alec’s cheeks: he focussed hard on not looking over at the glass poppet on the bedside table. “What the hell are you implying?” he snapped.

   Simon held his hands up in surrender. “Look – I know you maybe don’t like me, and I’m not totally sure I like you either. But that’s irrelevant. You like guys, and I don’t think you have anybody else who knows about this stuff. Right?” He didn’t wait for Alec to answer. “So...even if we don’t like each other... You can always ask me questions. If you have any. I won’t make fun or anything, I promise. But since you don’t have the internet – I’m just guessing here, but considering how you guys don’t even have a tv – if you have questions you can ask, okay? That’s all I wanted to say.”

   Alec didn’t answer for a moment, struggling with the urge to throw the books in Simon’s face and order him to get out. Instead, he deliberately said the one thing sure to make Simon have a fit. “What’s the internet?”

   “You – you – ” Simon spluttered. _“Please tell me you’re joking.”_  

   Alec shrugged, hiding a smile. “It’s something like the akashic records, isn’t it?” he asked deliberately vaguely.

   “The _what?”_

   Alec swiped his thumb over the cover of volume 2. “Could you do something for me?” he asked quickly, before he could lose his nerve.

   “That probably depends...” Simon sounded wary.

   “Could you get my phone?” Alec stubbornly kept his eyes on the books. “I’d ask Izzy, but...”

_She’d never let me live it down._

   Alec didn’t have to look to know that Simon was smiling again. “I guess that’s within my purview as Fairy Godmother,” he drawled. “Emphasis on _fairy_. Sure. Just tell me where it is.”

   He looked more nervous as Alec gave him directions to his room; his smile grew strained, but he didn’t renege on his agreement, just promised to be back soon and left Alec to his own devices.

   Afraid of seeing Jace?

   Probably, Alec thought. And why not? Alec couldn’t imagine what Simon was feeling right now. Alec didn’t even know how _he_ felt about it, the terrible revelation that Simon and Jace were brothers. When he’d first heard, his reaction had been relief: maybe now Jace would come to his senses and get over this strangely intense love affair.

   But that relief had only lasted a few seconds, because Jace was bleeding. Oh, not on the outside – he’d passed through Renwicks without so much as a scratch. But that changed nothing. Jace’s loss and misery bled through the _parabatai_ bond every second of the day as if someone had stabbed him in the heart, and at night it only grew worse. The only times Jace felt anything sweet was in his dreams, but he barely slept; restless and troubled, and the horrible, crushing tragedy of waking up to reality every few hours tore Alec out of his own sleep and ripped his breath away.

   No, the relief hadn’t lasted long. Alec wished that they had never found out, wished that someone had cut Valentine’s throat before he’d had time to spill forth his revelation like venom, or blood. Alec would rather see his _parabatai_ with Simon than feel how much missing him hurt.

   That was what real love meant.

   He heard Simon’s footsteps in the hall, quick and harried, but Simon relaxed as he stepped into the Infirmary, which was safely Jace-free. And Alec knew that he had to say something.

   “Thanks,” he told Simon as he accepted his phone. He flipped it open and closed as his stomach twisted into a knot. “Do you really think avoiding Jace will help?” he blurted.

   Simon stiffened. “Excuse me?” He rubbed at his wrist, covered by his jacket sleeve. “I would have thought you, of all people, would have wanted me to stay away from him.”

   “I want Jace to be happy,” Alec snapped. “He’s my _parabatai_ , but I can’t shield him from this, and it’s killing me.” He bit his tongue. “It’s killing _him_. He’s just – hurting and hurting, and I don’t know how to make it stop. I would do _anything_ to make it stop. Anything. But there’s nothing I can do. There’s no rune to heal a broken heart, there’s no spell – my world can’t help him, do you understand?”

   “Neither can mine.” Simon looked at his hands. “Mundanes haven’t figured out how to fix hearts either.”

   “You’re not a mundane,” Alec said. “I heard about Renwicks, Simon. And maybe you’re not a Shadowhunter either, maybe you’re standing on the line between – but maybe someone who straddles both worlds can do what the rest of us can’t.”

   “And what’s that?” Simon asked sharply. “Fix Jace? He’s not broken.”

   Alec counted to ten. “No, he’s not. But I can’t help him. It’s you he needs, so – _do something.”_

   “Like what?” Simon’s eyes glittered, cold and fierce. “You think I should kiss it better?”

   “Yes. No! I don’t know.” Alec didn’t want to think about it, about what Jace and Simon had done together, what they still wanted to do. They were brothers, and Alec’s heart still hurt from knowing that Jace had chosen someone else. “Just – do _something_. Reach out to him. Please. I’m not sure he can stand not having you in his life.”

   He didn’t quite choke on the words. They were like glass shards in his throat, but he didn’t choke.

   Simon stared at him for a while. “I’m going to go,” he said finally. Quietly. “Thanks for the talk, Alec. I really am glad you’re okay.” He stood up, swinging his bag over his shoulder. “You really should call Magnus, you know.”

   Alec breathed in deeply. “You really should call Jace,” he parried.

   Simon nodded slowly. “You’re a good friend,” he said softly.

   And before Alec could ask him what he meant – a good friend to Jace, or to him, to Simon – Simon turned and vanished out the door.

*

   A Brother Zachariah came to see Alec a few hours later, and after a scrutinising check-up gave Alec permission to get out of bed at last. Alec was only too happy to do so. Another day, and he would probably have set the damn cot on fire.

   He wanted to go and find Jace, tell him about his talk with Simon. But Jace felt like concrete through their bond, hard and cold and unwelcoming, and Alec knew from years of experience that there was no talking Jace around when he was like this. He lashed out when he was hurt, as though he thought that pain somehow made him weak, vulnerable.

   Maybe Valentine had taught him that. It seemed like the kind of senseless cruelty such a man would drum into a child.

   Alec flipped his phone open. Closed. Hid the _Crimson Spell_ books in the hidden compartment in his closet. Flipped the phone open again.

   He’d told Simon to reach out. Shouldn’t he take his own advice?

   Open. Closed.

   Pause.

   Open.

   He dialled the number from memory and lifted the phone to his ear.

   It only rang twice before it _clicked_ as the call connected. “Magnus Bane.”

   In a burst of panic, Alec slammed the phone shut and flung it across the room. It landed on the bed, where it bounced once before going still.

   His heart was racing. It was always calm and steady when he was hunting, but now his blood was roaring in his ears like a neades demon, until he thought his ribcage might split in two.

   He made himself breathe deeply and calmly, waiting out the surge of adrenalin. Alright. Not the phone, then. It was better this way; he was a Shadowhunter, not a wordsmith. Jace might be able to talk gravity into letting him fly, but Alec was better with actions than words.

   He would have this conversation face to face.

*

   Alec was a strategist, but he had no experience with this kind of battlefield. He knew of no way to prepare: Jace had cheekbones like knives and eyes that took your breath away like a blow, but Alec had no weapons to sharpen or holster. So he waited until his pulse was smooth and regular again, and then he left.

   On the subway, glamoured into invisibility in a nearly empty car, Alec had the sense of travelling deeper into the unknown, trespassing on some wild animal’s territory. It was like and unlike the frission of awareness that came with entering another Shadowhunter’s private space, but it was ridiculous: he couldn’t breach Magnus’ territory, because he’d always been in it.

   There had been plenty of time to read while he was bedridden, and now he was all too aware of what he’d forgotten before: exactly what the title High Warlock actually _meant._ Did Jace know, Alec wondered? It had never come up in class; Alec had read about it for the first time in a scroll lying forgotten and dusty in the Institute’s library, and the second time in a book of his own notes.

   His injuries were still tender; Alec favoured them automatically but without tenderness, thinking hard. He had not been able to discover the meaning of the sigils on Magnus’ lamen, but that might only be because he hadn’t had the resources – every book he’d read while bedridden had had to be brought to him. Maybe he should have waited until he’d interpreted the lamen before taking this step...

   But then it was his stop, and he didn’t know what to do except get out and start walking.

   The world seemed so empty: the street was completely deserted, despite the bright sunshine. Or maybe because of it? Warlocks usually preferred not to live surrounded by Downworlders, but maybe High Warlocks were different. Maybe Magnus had allowed a Downworlder neighbourhood to spring up around him – one that was sleeping away the daylight.

   Or avoiding a lone Shadowhunter, Alec thought as he pressed Magnus’ buzzer.

   As with the phone, Magnus responded almost instantly. “WHO CALLS UPON THE HIGH WARLOCK?” his voice boomed.

   Alec breathed in deeply. “Alec Lightwood.”

   There was a pause, a silence thick with surprise. But the only answer was the whining _ping_ of the door being unlocked, and Alec pushed it open without waiting to see if Magnus would say anything more.

   The stairs were dark and dusty. Alec tried to ignore the tension that reminded him of walking into a demon’s lair.

   It became much, much easier to do so when he reached the second floor, and found Magnus waiting for him.

   The warlock was leaning against the doorframe, and it wasn’t that he glittered and sparkled, because this time he didn’t: instead of his loud, defiant party-clothes Magnus was dressed pretty normally. And yet he still shone. His skin glowed against his black t-shirt, and he might have just risen from a tryst; his feline eyes were hooded and sleepy, his black hair standing up in messy spikes that Alec wanted to touch, just to see if they were as soft as they looked. Whereas the dark blue jeans made his mouth go dry, hung so low, framing the sleek lines of Magnus’ hips.

   Alec caught himself wondering what those beautiful hipbones would feel like against his palms, and dropped his gaze hurriedly.

   “Alexander Lightwood,” Magnus said. There was the ghost of an accent there, or maybe many accents; a liquid ripple of sound whispering around the edges of the words. Silk and spice and hard, white sunlight. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

   He was a Shadowhunter, and Magnus was no Abbadon. Alec put his fear away like a coat in warm weather. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”

   Magnus crossed his arms over the sequins spelling ONE MILLION DOLLARS on his shirt. His eyes gleamed in the dim light just like a cat’s as they looked Alec up and down. “Well, all right then,” he decided abruptly. Without another word he turned and vanished back into his apartment; after a beat, Alec followed him.

   Magnus’ home looked very different when it wasn’t stuffed full of Downworlders. There seemed to be more space, and the bar and stage were gone. Instead the loft had been divided into several little areas by groupings of furniture. With a wave of his hand Magnus gestured for Alec to take a seat in the ‘sitting room’, and flung himself down on an ottoman before Alec could move.

   Alec gingerly sat down on a velvet sofa whose golden softness tried to swallow him.

   “Would you like some tea?” Magnus asked. It was hard to tell, but he seemed amused.

   “No thank you,” Alec said firmly. He had not come here for tea.

   Magnus nodded while Alec was realising that turning down the drink had been a mistake: it would have given him something to do with his hands. “So,” he said. “Why are you here?”

   This was where Jace would have woven magic with his quicksilver tongue, and his grin, and the relaxed shape of his shoulders. But Jace wasn’t here, and even if he had been, this wasn’t the kind of fight Alec’s _parabatai_ could help him with. “I wanted to thank you,” he said carefully. “For saving my life.” Because not thinking it was important – as important as Jace, as the Mortal Cup – didn’t mean that he was blind to the effort Magnus had put into saving it. Effort that Magnus had not needed to extend, but had anyway.

   “You wanted to thank me,” Magnus repeated. Now he was definitely amused.

   “Yes.” Alec really, really wished he had accepted the tea. “I was delirious, and I don’t think I really thanked you. I know you didn’t have to do it. So – thank you.”

   Magnus propped his head on one hand. As he moved, the hem of his shirt rode up over his stomach, and Alec’s eyes dropped to the smooth skin before he could stop them. “You’re...welcome?”

   Alec looked away. “And I had a question for you,” he blurted. “About the poppet.”

   “Is that so?” The grin that had begun to curve Magnus’ lips stopped, and his eyebrows rose instead. “And what is your question, Shadowhunter?”

   Alec swallowed. “The catnip. In the poppet. What is it for?”

   “Ah, that.” Magnus flicked a bit of lint off the ottoman. “It has quite a few uses, actually. The leaves can be pressed and used as bookmarks in magical texts, if you can believe it – our books burn up most bookmarks like your Marks burn normal paper.” He shrugged. “In spells – protection, healing, the summoning of luck – ”

   “I know all that,” Alec interrupted, and Magnus blinked, clearly surprised. “I just wanted to know if you meant it as part of a healing spell or a – a love charm.”

   Magnus said nothing for a moment. The laughter had left his eyes; he gazed at Alec now with speculative interest. “How does one of the Nephilim know about herbal magic?” he asked finally.

   Alec shrugged. “I study.”

   “Your friend Jace said that you fall asleep in class.”

   “Because I’m studying all night,” Alec explained. “And I only sleep in history. I almost never need history.”

   “But you need herbal magic?” Magnus pounced. “How very...interesting. What else do you know, I wonder?”

   Alec tried not to squirm in his seat. He didn’t know how to feel about the way Magnus was looking at him – as if the warlock were seeing him for the first time, really seeing him. Why had he said that bit about studying at night? Nobody knew that. Alec had never told anyone before. “I know what High Warlock means,” he blurted.

   Magnus smiled. “Do you?” The line of his lips was non-committal, indulgent – but his eyes were suddenly sharp.

   Alec suddenly felt as though he were standing over a precipice – one far deeper and darker even than his real purpose for coming today. “It means a warlock who controls a nexus,” he said carefully.

   Magnus said nothing for a moment: he stared unblinkingly at Alec, and Alec had no idea what thoughts were passing behind those eyes. “Accurate enough,” he said finally. “I wasn’t aware the Nephilim paid such close attention to warlock affairs.”

   Alec shook his head. “They don’t,” he admitted. “We never covered it in class. I read about it on my own in an old scroll.” He grimaced, remembering. “It took me a week to translate it. And I still have no idea what a nexus is.”

   Magnus grinned, and abruptly the shadow of tension in the room dissipated like mist in sunlight. “It’s a place where two or more ley lines cross. And to answer your original question – I used both of those properties in your poppet’s catnip, and a few more besides.”

   It took Alec a moment to remember: healing spell and love charm.

   “But I didn’t compel you, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Magnus continued. “Love spells – ”

   “ – can’t force or create love, yes, I know.” He had never considered that Magnus might be trying to force or control him. Even if he hadn’t known how the magic worked, he wouldn’t have thought that.

  Magnus’ eyebrows rose higher. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” But he didn’t look unhappy about it. He looked interested.

   Was that a good thing?

   “You’re correct, though,” Magnus said. “Love spells can only call love to you, or encourage what’s already there.” He tilted his head. “You’re really not what I expected,” he said suddenly.

   Alec blinked. “From a Shadowhunter?”

   “Well, that too,” Magnus allowed. “Most of you are pig-ignorant when it comes to magic. But I meant – not what I expected from a Lightwood.”

   “I didn’t realise you knew my family.”

   “I’ve known your family for hundreds of years,” Magnus said. “Now, your sister, she’s a Lightwood. You – ”

   Alec’s gut felt like a gorgon nest. “She said you liked me.”

   Magnus paused. “Pardon?”

   “Izzy.” The snakes were writhing. Hissing. “My sister. She told me you liked me. _Liked_ me, liked me.”

   _“Liked_ you, liked you?” Magnus’ grin slid across his face like honey. “Sorry. Are we twelve now? I don’t recall saying anything to Isabelle...”

   “And I think Simon was trying to say it too,” Alec said over him. Snakes. Snakes and wasps. “That you liked me. And that I should just tell you that I like you too, even though I’m not sure what to do about it, or how – how guys do it, or anything. But I’d like to find out. With you. If you want to.” He took a deep breath. “Do you? Want to go out with me?”

   Magnus blinked. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. Straightforward and without guile.” He peered at Alec. “Are you sure you’re a Lightwood?” he asked suspiciously.

   Alec wasn’t sure if Magnus was joking or not. “Yes,” he answered, just in case. “I am.”

   “Hm.” Magnus sighed, and sat up on the ottoman. “Why do you want to go out with me?” he asked. “Not, of course, that I’m not highly desirable, but the way you asked, it seemed as if you were having some sort of fit – ”

   _Because you wear sequins and glitter and you’re so brave, you don’t care what anyone thinks of you and I want to be brave like that, I want to learn how to be brave like that. Because you do the right thing even when it’s hard, even when you don’t have to, you didn’t have to save my life but you did it anyway and you were so strong, so beautiful, the demons ran from you and you kept the darkness away. Because I like your hands and your eyes and your hips and your hair, and thinking about touching you is like being hit by lightning but I don’t want it to stop, and, I just –_

“I just do,” Alec said lamely. Wishing, not for the first time, that he could learn Jace’s trick of dropping diamonds and pearls from his lips. But Alec’s thoughts stubbornly remained tangled, useless straw, refusing to be spun into smooth gold. So he offered up the straw instead, not knowing what else to do. “And I thought you liked me, so you’d say yes, and I could try – ” _Could try getting over Jace, because he’ll never be mine, not even now Simon’s his brother; he’ll never look at me and see and it hurts but I want, I want someone who looks at me and sees –_

   “I mean, _we_ could try – ” Raziel, he was making such a mess of this! He put his head in his hands, unable to meet Magnus’ eyes any longer. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

   “Does anyone know you’re gay?” Magnus asked gently.

   Alec’s head snapped up. For a wild moment, he nearly denied it all: but it was too late for that. “Izzy,” he said. His voice was hoarse; his lungs felt tight. “And Simon, somehow.” Not knowing how Simon had figured it out had given him nightmares. How had he slipped up, given himself away? What if his parents saw, or Jace? Even though Jace had – even though Jace wasn’t straight anymore, the thought of his _parabatai_ knowing brought a wave of cold terror with it.

   “Not your parents? Not Jace?”

   “No,” Alec said sharply. _Breathe, Lightwood,_ he told himself. “I don’t want them to know.”

   “That’s your decision,” Magnus said, his voice soothing. “Although by all accounts, your _parabatai_ went to pieces like a jigsaw puzzle when you nearly died. People who care that much rarely turn away from you for anything.”

   “I’d still rather not.” Alec rubbed his palms over his knees. He was breathing quickly, as if his body thought that this was a fight, a battle. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted quietly. “I’ve never had a date. Never kissed anyone. I’m sorry if I’m – if this is wrong.”

   Magnus sighed. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” he said gently. “And I’m not unsympathetic. But do you actually _like_ me? Because this being gay business doesn’t mean you can just throw yourself at a guy and it’ll be fine because he’s not a girl. There are still people you like and people you don’t.”

   A memory flashed, like the glint of light on a blade; Magnus’ lamen shining like a star above Alec’s sickbed, guiding him home through the pain.

   “Yes,” Alec said simply. “I like you.”

   He set his jaw and met Magnus’ eyes without flinching. It was a hard gaze to hold: not because of the strangeness of the slitted pupils – they were beautiful – but because Magnus was looking at him with a complicated expression, some mixture of fond curiosity and intrigued puzzlement that sent nervous sparks through Alec’s veins.

   Something pressed against Alec’s leg then, and he looked down suddenly, breaking the stare. A small white cat was weaving a figure of eight between Alec’s legs, rubbing itself happily against his jeans.

   “The Chairman likes you.” Magnus seemed pleased.

   “Is that good?” It sounded good, but Alec could feel the cat’s purring rumbling through his legs, and it was a little bit terrifying.

   “I never date anyone my cat doesn’t like,” Magnus declared, and stood. “So let’s say Friday night?”

   “Really?” Alec’s head jerked up, relief and elation making it hard not to grin. “You want to go out with me?”

   Magnus clicked his tongue. “You have to stop playing hard to get, Alexander. It makes things difficult.” But he grinned, and Alec stopped trying to repress his own. He had the feeling that he looked like a fool, but he didn’t care. “Come on, I’ll walk you out,” Magnus added.

   Alec followed Magnus towards the door, caught between something like giddiness and something like an intense calm. The air felt clearer, and his body didn’t feel quite so leaden; it was as if some vein of poison had been drawn from a wound – as if Magnus had healed him again, somehow, in some way less dramatic and visual but no less effective. Of course, Alec realised, he would have to figure out a way to go on his date without gaining Jace’s interest – without giving away where he was going. And he would have to guard his emotions, or Jace would ask why his _parabatai_ was so happy at such a strange, awful time –

   Alec paused suddenly, realising that the door was still closed: another moment and he would have walked into it. Magnus was leaning against the doorframe, examining Alec through slitted eyes.

   “What is it?” Alec asked.

   “Never kissed anyone?” Magnus said. “No one at all?”

    Was Magnus reconsidering? Perhaps he wasn’t interested in someone so inexperienced after all. “No,” Alec said, hoping he was wrong. “Not a real kiss – ”

   Magnus smirked. The simple shape of his mouth did hot, interesting things to Alec’s insides. “That’s easily fixed.” He straightened up a little and reached for Alec’s elbows, tugging him gently closer. “Come here.”

   Alec went; not doing so was abruptly impossible. All of it seemed impossible; the nameless strangeness of being so close to another person, close enough to feel the warmth of living skin; the sudden realisation that Magnus was ever so slightly taller than him, which hardly ever happened; the jittering, wide-awake energy suddenly coursing through his body, lighting him up like the Manhattan skyline; Magnus’ beauty, his velvet-sheathed muscles and his gleaming eyes and the smooth, lithe line of him that fit so achingly perfectly against Alec’s body; and most of all the moment itself, the event of it, the finger tilting his chin to Magnus’ face and the lips suddenly meeting his and they were _kissing._

   And it was strange, for a beat; he’d imagined this a thousand times but he hadn’t known, he hadn’t _known_ , mouth to mouth and for a second it was just weird. _(Who had invented kissing, anyway, who had first thought to press lips to lips, who had come up with that and why?)_ But Magnus’ lips were soft, and the heat in the pit of Alec’s belly burst into flame and something in him wept with relief, touch-starved and shaking and _yes, yes, yes._ He could hardly think, hardly dared to breathe because any moment now Magnus would realise that Alec wasn’t good enough for him, was hopelessly incompetent at this –

   Magnus’ lips parted against Alec’s, and for a moment there was warm breath that shivered down Alec’s spine – and then Magnus’ tongue slid into Alec’s mouth, gently, softly and Alec groaned at the explosion of shocked heat and hunger. It swept through him like a desert wind and his hands fell against Magnus’ waist, craving, starving, thrilling at the touch of bare, smooth skin. He splayed his fingers, drinking in the contact as Magnus jerked with surprise – but then relaxed, and Alec’s hands moved up under Magnus’ shirt, half-giddy with elation, awe, disbelief. This was allowed, he could do this, could touch, and his mind spun as he tried to control his hands and his tongue in the face of this incredible –

   His knees went weak as Magnus’ fingers hooked in Alec’s belt loops and tugged him closer, white-hot thrills racing through his veins. But the kiss broke, and an entirely involuntary noise of protest spilled from Alec’s throat – almost a whimper, but there was no time for embarrassment because Magnus’ lips were gliding over Alec’s neck and Alec couldn’t remember how to stand. His hands flew from Magnus’ torso to his hair, tangling in the silky locks _(they were soft, just as soft as they’d looked)_ desperately to urge him on; his whole body felt liquid and molten, every cell throbbing with pleasure, and when Magnus’ teeth grazed lightly over his skin Alec had to lean heavily against the wall, biting his lip to swallow any more embarrassing sounds –

   Just as Alec was about to use Raziel’s name in some truly blasphemous ways, it all stopped. Magnus released him, gently tugging himself free of Alec’s hold; the warm curve of his mouth and the amused hunger in his gold eyes had Alec rethinking an apology. Magnus didn’t look annoyed at all.

   “Now you’ve been kissed,” Magnus murmured. His voice was low; Alec swallowed hard at it, and tried not to stare at the man’s lips. Magnus’ grin was very nearly a smirk as he reached past Alec and opened the door. “See you Friday?”

   It was a tremendous effort to move – or rather, to move away from Magnus and towards the door; Alec wanted to fling himself at the warlock, wrap his arms around that lithe body and kiss and kiss until they both forgot how to breathe. A confused jumble of images from Simon’s manga flashed through his head, exacerbating his embarrassment and his loud, pounding desire.

   He made it the few inches to the door. But then – then he wondered why not, and he turned back, and before Magnus could say a word Alec fisted a hand in the man’s shirt and dragged him into another kiss. It was clumsy and unpractised but it tasted like lightning, fierce and urgent, and when Alec’s palm found Magnus’ chest he felt the warlock’s heart stutter against his fingertips.

   He broke off the kiss, and pulled back. It took effort not to lick his bruised, swollen lips, and not to lean in and taste Magnus’ again. “Friday,” he agreed, and let Magnus go. He could feel a huge, bright grin stretching across his mouth, and couldn’t figure out how to make it stop, even as he backed out into the landing.

   Magnus shook his head, grinning as he crossed his arms over his now-wrinkled shirt. “Lightwoods,” he said. “They always have to have the last word.”

   He shut the door behind him, and Alec ran down the stairs two at a time, trying not to laugh, or scream, or sing.

   _Friday._ It sounded like a spell.

   It sounded like magic.

* * *

 

 NOTES

 

 _Crimson Spell_ is a manga by Ayano Yamane

The akashic records are, to my understanding, a storehouse of all knowledge, or possibly all spiritual knowledge. It is reached through meditation and/or astral projection. In Runed, the akashic records are a warlock thing that may or may not come up over the course of the series.

Neades are ancient Greek monsters native to Samos (wherever that is), whose roar could split the earth.

Alec’s thoughts about diamonds and pearls falling from his lips is a reference to the French fairytale Diamonds and Toads. The straw-into-gold line is obviously a Rumplestiltskin reference!


	37. Epilogue the Third

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END, you guys, it's finally here!!! 
> 
> My gods, I'm so sorry this took so long. There was a LOT to get out, and I'm sure that a lot of you are actually not going to like it at all. I'm sorry for that, but this has been the ending I've planned for CoS since I realised it wasn't going to be a one-shot but the start of a series. So...I hope you can forgive me, even if you don't enjoy it.
> 
> The other thing is this: this chapter messes with past and present tense. I'm sure some of you won't enjoy that either, but I promise, every instance of switching back and forth is ENTIRELY deliberate, and after a lot of hard thinking, I've decided not to try and change it. Making it all past or present doesn't feel right to me: this is how the chapter is meant to be. Again, I hope you forgive me even you don't enjoy it.
> 
> There, that's all the warnings out of the way, I think! GO FORTH AND...weep? Scream? I don't know. READ!

   Jace strode into Pandemonium glamoured and alone. The wash of light and sound swept over him as he entered, the flashes of blue and white and pink as dazzling as anything a faerie could conjure, the music a thousand sweet nails sliding into his skin.

   He couldn’t see the blood falling from his fingertips, but he could feel it.

   The club was full of bodies – nameless, faceless, mundanes and a few Downworlders talking and dancing in an unimportant blur. Jace ignored them all like background static, like ghosts on the edges of a dream. His hand was in his pocket, clenched white-knuckled around his phone and the text inside it as he worked his way through the crowd, the pounding of his heart almost enough to drown out the music.

   A text. A date, a time, a place. And four words that had unmanned him in a breath, had him collapsing against a wall and fighting to stay standing:

   _I still don’t care._

   A new song was starting. Jace pushed himself over to the side of the room, where it was a touch quieter. He couldn’t bring himself to go closer to the stage, not with his heart in his mouth and his bones fragile as spun glass beneath his skin.

   But he had to look. He had to _see._

_“From the get-go I, knew, this was hard, to hold~,_  
 _Like-a-crash, the whole thing spun, out, of, control~_  
 _Oh~, on a wire, we were danc-in,_  
 _Two kids no cons-equences,_  
 _Pull the trigger, without think-ing,_  
 _There’s only one way down this road~!”_

   And there he was – Simon, up on the stage with his band gathered around him like an _agela_. The sight of him pierced Jace like a knife; he stood with the mike in his hand like a weapon, ready to wage war, some indescribable blend of emotion written on his face plain for all to see. Jace couldn’t look away from it – there was anger there, something hot and burning and painful, something desperate, something defiant. How could anyone take their eyes off him? How could the mundanes dance – how could they not stop in their tracks and stare at the fire blazing out of Simon as he sang?

 _“It was like a_ time bomb _set into mo-tion,”_ he cried, throwing the words like grenades,  
 _“We knew that we were_ des-tined _to ex,plode,_  
 _And if-I-have to pull you out of the wreck-age,_  
 _You know I’m never gonna let-you go!”_

   The words caught at Jace suddenly like a surprise attack, dragging his attention away from the glory of Simon in his leather Shadowhunting jacket and to the lyrics he was singing, hurling into the crowd.

  
 _“We’re like a ti~me bomb!_  
 _Gonna lose it, let’s defuse it!_  
 _Baby, we’re like a ti~me bomb!”_

   Simon’s eyes burned. _“But I need it,”_ he sang, as if he could see Jace in the crowd, as if he were singing just to his brother – a declaration, a promise, a – _“Wouldn’t have it –_

_Any other way...”_

_I still don’t care._ Jace had stared and stared at those four words, but even they didn’t have the impact of hearing Simon all but scream this into the light, into the darkness, into the ears of a hundred people who didn’t understand it.

   And into Jace. _For_ Jace.

   Simon smiled, as if he could hear the thought. _“Well there’s no way out of this, So let’s stay in,”_ he sang, careless and relaxed, as if it could ever be that simple -

_“Every storm, that comes,_  
 _Al-so comes, to~ an end..._  
 _Oh, res-istance, is useless!_  
 _Just two kids stu-pid and fear-less!_  
 _Like a bul-let, shooting the love-sick,_  
 _There’s only, one way down this road~!”_

   It was hard to listen, hard to sift through the sound for words and meaning when Simon stood up there as though nothing had changed. Jace had caught a glimpse of the mundane singer up on the stage when he and Alec and Izzy had last been here hunting the Eidolon demon; just a glimpse of all that light, all that fire, all the firework passion bursting and burning and setting all the mundanes alight. It had been nearly blinding.

   And Simon hadn’t lost that power: it streamed out of him, a river of light and sound, an ocean taking and drowning everyone who listened in the sheer emotion behind every word. If anything, it was stronger now, brighter now: he stood more confidently, with more certainty. His eyes shone behind his glasses, and every time he glanced towards Jace’s corner, Jace felt his pulse leap to meet that gaze.

   But he stayed in the shadows. He wasn’t ready to face this yet.

   It didn’t matter. Simon’s voice softened, gentled, as if he could hear Jace’s shivering uncertainty. Reassuring, encouraging, promising –

_“Got my heart, in your hands,_  
 _Like a time-bomb tick-ing..._  
 _It goes off, we start it again,_  
 _When it breaks we fix it..._  
 _Got your heart, in my hands,_  
 _Like a time-bomb tick-ing –_  
 _We should know, bet-ter but we won’t, let, go~!”_

   Simon crashed into the song’s chorus with fire and lightning, but Jace stood frozen, untouched by the sudden heat. _I still don’t care._ Those words had drawn him here, words and a memory of brows pressed together and a scream of raw feeling caught in his throat – but it still rocked him on his feet. This song, Simon’s words, his declaration for anyone to hear – what if Alec or Izzy had followed Jace? Was Clary here? How could Simon do this, how could he not _care_ , how could he scream it at the whole world as if daring it to deny him?

   Jace took a deep, shuddering breath as the song came to a close. The huge pressure of the moment eased, but didn’t disappear. Simon stood panting on the stage; even from this distance Jace could see that the brunette’s forehead was damp with sweat. Was this like a battle for him, was this how Simon fought? He had seen Simon weaving war with his blades, but this – this seemed more natural for him.

   After hearing him sing, Jace wasn’t quite sure that Simon’s music was any less a weapon than his own seraph swords.

   Simon lifted his head suddenly and grinned out at his audience. He looked tired, but not beaten. Was he wondering if Jace had come? What must it be like, to sing your heart out like this and not know if the one you sang to were even listening?

   “Alright guys, we’ve got one more for you!” Simon announced, pulling the mike from the stand. He hesitated for a bare moment before he continued, less bubbly and careless. “This is... I wrote it for somebody special, and it’s a softer one, okay? So if you’re here with your special people, now’s the time to hold them tight. Because...just because.”

   He took a deep breath. “Okay. Alright.” He smiled out at them. “Here we go.”

   Jace stood transfixed as Simon’s band members – for the life of him, he couldn’t recall their names – led Simon in as Simon pushed up his sleeves.

   A glint of crystal. Jace felt his eyes widen.

 _“This is my love song to you,”_ Simon announced, and it was there, the _armask_ _ō_ cuff, he was still wearing it – _“Let everybody know I’m yours.”_ Simon smiled, soft and private. _“So you can fall asleep each night, babe/And know I’m dreaming of you mo-ore~ –”_

   It could have been – the first song, it could have been something else. It could have been about – about before, before they knew they were brothers. It could have been. But this – by the Angel, _this –_

 _“I will never-stop, try-ing!”_ Simon swore. Not now, not even now, not –  
 _“I will-never-stop, watch-ing as you leave!_  
 _I will-never-stop, los-in’ my breath,_  
 _Every-time I see you look-ing back at me!_  
 _I will-never-stop, hold-ing your, hand,_  
 _I will-never-stop, open-ing your door,_  
 _I will-never-stop, choos-in’ you, babe –_  
 _I will never get used~, to you!”_

It didn’t feel soft. It didn’t feel like velvet, like gossamer: it felt like a war-cry, an oath sworn in blood _(their blood, their shared blood),_ a tempered scream that nothing had changed, nothing at all. Simiel flashed diamond-fire on Simon’s wrist and with every word he swore against giving up and Jace, Jace –

   He hadn’t known what to expect. Not really. But it hadn’t been _this_. It hadn’t been someone wanting him so much, this much – it hadn’t been, despite the text, this –

 _“I will not look the other way,”_ Simon swore fiercely, and Jace’s breath caught in his throat, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take his eyes away as Simon looked up suddenly, looked up and saw him and sang –

  
 _“You are my life, my love, my only –  
And that’s the one thing that won’t change – !”_

   “Simon,” Jace whispered, and he almost thought Simon heard him – for sure, he saw him, and if he’d been singing it for Jace before now he sang it _to_ Jace, heart to heart and Jace could hardly stand it, the uncompromising intensity of it, shameless and brave and _God_. Raziel, he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t breathe for the incredible rich sweetness of it, the fierceness, the way Simon cut himself open and bared his heart for them all to see but most of all, most of all for Jace to see, to hear, to _know_ – 

   It wasn’t sweat now. Simon’s face was wet, but he didn’t pause, didn’t stop even as his voice hitched and tears streaked his cheeks like blood and every word was bled from him, every word was a celebration, every word was a promise –

_“You still get my heart ra~cing,”_

Even now, even now and for always –

  
 _“You, still get my heart ra~cing for you,_  
 _You, still get my heart ra~cing,”_

The music beat like ocean tides, pulling him in – as if Jace could stand against it, as if it could ever leave him untouched – the words, the promise, the tears on Simon’s face and he was so brave, so beautiful, so perfect that it hurt –

  
 _“You, still get my heart ra~cing for you,_  
 _You, still get my heart ra~cing,_  
 _You, still get my heart ra~cing for you,_  
 _You, still get my heart ra~cing,_  
 _You, still get my heart ra~cing_  
 _For you.”_

   It stopped.

   Simon fell silent, and a few moments later the instruments stilled with him, but Jace could still hear it. Still see it, in every line of his – his Simon; in his face and his jaw, his shoulders, the drained slump of his spine.

   Simon was still looking at him. Still watching him, though for what Jace couldn’t begin to imagine. He had no idea how to respond.

   He had no idea how he was still standing.

   Eventually Simon turned away, closing the act calmly, as though nothing had happened – as though his face weren’t wet with tears. He and the others left the stage, and Jace was left trembling, raked through by Simon’s voice as if by long, vicious claws. Pinned in place by the impossibly glorious, agonisingly perfect words, piercing him like stigmata. His heart wrapped in a braid of thorns he wouldn’t remove for the world.

   His phone buzzed in his pocket. Automatically, Jace withdrew it and flipped it open.

   _Meet me at home if you feel the same._

   Jace turned and left almost before he’d finished reading the message.

*

   He did not return to the Institute, for all that it was the only home he’d known for years. Instead he went to Simon’s house, with the rubble of Dorothea’s apartment in the foyer, and one of the banisters broken near the top. An empty skylight.

   When your home was a broken shell...what did it mean? Did it reflect some inner damage, did you have scars to match your house’s? Did Simon?

   The door to Simon’s apartment was unlocked; Jace opened it gingerly, his gut tight and full of molten lead. He did not expect any Forsaken – he’d cleaned out the nest of them two days after Renwicks, hungry for something to lash out at, for the burn of adrenalin and bruises – but it wasn’t the monsters he was afraid of coming eye to eye with.

   “In here.” Simon’s voice shook a little as it reached Jace, but Jace didn’t comment on it. Closing the door behind him, he followed the memory of the sound until he stopped in the doorway of Simon’s bedroom.

   “I brought coffee,” he said lightly, amazed at his own breezy tone. He held out one of the cardboard cups.

   Simon smiled a little. This close, in this light, Jace could see the scar on Simon’s cheek, a thin white slash. “About time. You’ve been promising me one for two weeks.” He’d been sitting on his bed, but now he got up. He walked towards Jace carefully, as if Jace were a wild animal who might startle.

   Jace wondered whether Simon thought he would run, or bite.

   Because he couldn’t meet Simon’s gaze, Jace watched his brother’s hand instead. Simon had the same musician’s fingers that Jace did, but where Jace’s calluses came from handling swords, Simon’s had been born of the strings of his guitar. But it was not a soft hand, not with the thick white scars ringing Simon’s wrist like a bracelet. Simon was silk over steel.

   Their fingers didn’t brush as Simon took the cup. But the silver Fairchild ring was back on Simon’s finger.

   “Thanks,” Simon said quietly.

   “You’re welcome.”

   They were standing close together, but the silence seemed a physical barrier between them. For once Jace had no idea what to say, no idea how to breach the wall and reclaim the incredible, wordless closeness they’d shared before. He missed it like a limb.

   “It’s called Genetic Sexual Attraction,” Simon said suddenly.

   “What is?” The coffee was warming his palm.

   Simon’s free hand gestured between them. “This. Siblings separated at – at birth, or nearly, falling in – falling for each other. When they meet as adults. Or near-adults, I guess.” He was talking too fast. “This – it’s why it’s so – intense. There’s a reason for it. It’s normal.”

   Jace’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t realise mundanes were so deviant,” he drawled.

   “Yeah, well, the literature does say to ‘resist these feelings, they will pass’.” Simon made air quotes with his fingers, almost dropping his coffee cup in the process. “It was really fucking patronising, actually.”

   Jace’s throat felt tight. “And do you think they’ll pass?”

   “No.” No hesitation. But Simon’s coffee cup was trembling. He turned away to put it gingerly on the bedside table. “Although, for the record? I looked up _eromenos,_ and I really do not like all the connotations.” He shrugged without meeting Jace’s eyes. “So I found us a new word.”

   “For what?” Jace wished Simon would look at him. “For us? For what this is?” His voice was almost angry; he shut his jaw and bit the tip of his tongue. A new word. So that they could pretend this was something else? So Simon could hide from the reality, play them like a game?

   “Yes,” Simon said simply.

   “And what is this?” Jace put his drink down next to Simon’s. He felt the same rush of adrenalin and power that hit him in battle.

   “You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t know,” Simon said softly.

   “Incest.” There’s nothing soft about the word; it has jagged edges in Jace’s mouth, sharp and blistering. He throws it down like a challenge.

   Simon doesn’t flinch. “Maybe,” he said stubbornly. “We don’t really know though, do we?”

   “Yes, we do.” It hurts, but there’s no getting around this. “The rings recognise us both, Simon. Whatever this is, it’s – incest.”

   “So nobody ever wears the rings of another family?” Simon challenged. “What about when you get married? Don’t you become a member of your new family when you marry into it?”

   “Did we get married when I wasn’t looking?” Jace asked sarcastically.

   In answer, Simon pushed up his sleeve, lifting his chin defiantly as Simiel caught the light.

   Jace looked away first. “It’s not a wedding ring,” he muttered.

   “Tell me to take it off, then.” Simon spoke softly, but every word felt like the ripple before the earthquake. “If it doesn’t mean anything. Tell me to give it back.”

   “I don’t want it back!” Blazing, bright; the sudden fierce wave of _no_ was like swallowing fire. Jace took a deep breath. “But you can’t keep wearing it,” he added reluctantly. “Someone will see, Simon.”

   For a moment, Simon said nothing. Then;

   “Give me your ring.”

   “What?” For a moment Jace couldn’t follow.

   “The Morgenstern ring. If you – if I’m not allowed wear the cuff anymore, then I want your ring instead.” Simon’s voice was fragile, suddenly, as though he was sure Jace would refuse; but he met Jace’s gaze squarely. “And I’ll give you the Fairchild one. No one will bat an eye if you want to distance yourself from the Morgenstern bloodline, will they? And I’m brand new to the Nephilim; it makes sense that I wouldn’t care about our psychopath dad, that I’d just want a link to my heritage. So we can swap rings.”

   Jace stared at him, speechless with shocked, raw hunger. The sheer _want_ Simon’s suggestion elicited went past words. The thought of his ring on Simon’s finger –

   “Do you – do you not want to?” Simon asked hesitantly. His eyes looked bruised, hurt.

   “No,” Jace said hoarsely. “I very much do. More than – ” He made himself stop. “It’s how Shadowhunters get engaged,” he continued after a moment. “We exchange family rings.” He closed his eyes. “ ‘Your blood is my blood; your war is my war,’ ” he said softly. “ ‘Let our families be joined in the light, and stand side by side against the darkness. And let the shadows howl with despair, for together we are stronger; together we are whole.’ ”

   “Wow,” Simon whispered. When Jace opened his eyes, Simon was grinning at him. “Your wedding vows are _way_ cooler than the ones I know.”

   Jace rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t keep from grinning back. “Those aren’t the full wedding vows. It’s what you say when you exchange rings.”

   “Oh.” Simon looked down at his hand, and the gleam of silver on his finger. “Your blood _is_ my blood, you know,” he commented.

   “Are you _joking_ about this?” Jace asked, incredulous.

   “Oh, come on.” Simon glanced up at him, his lips quirked. “I had to.”

   Jace put his hand over his face. “You’re joking about incest. About us _committing_ incest. I could have lost my heart to some nice Shadowhunter girl who can draw Solomon’s Grand Pentacle in a midnight blizzard, but _nooo_ , I had to go and fall for _you_ instead – ”

   Simon’s grin grew wider and wider. “Actually,” he drawled, “I _can_ draw that.”

   Jace lowered his hand and stared.

   Simon just shrugged, still grinning. “It’s the Devil’s Trap on _Supernatural.”_

   “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jace informed him loftily.

   “Well, _clearly_ I’ll have to show you sometime.”

   And it was so easy, so natural – as if they’d turned back the clock and Renwicks had never happened. Jace’s heart ached in his chest, because even this, this tiny moment, made him happier than he could ever remember being before Simon. Simon’s ridiculous references, his grin, the way he always, _always_ managed to take Jace by surprise...

   By the Angel, he was so lost.

   “What was the new word?” he asked softly. He reached up and pulled his necklace out from under his shirt, and then over his head. The Morgenstern ring hung from the simple bronze chain.

   Simon followed it with his eyes. Jace saw him swallow hard. _“_ _Aikane,”_ he answered. His voice was soft, and it shook. “It’s Hawaiian.”

   “What does it mean?” Jace asked gently. He unclasped the chain and slid the ring from it.

   “ ‘Beloved friend’,” Simon whispered. Clumsily, he pulled the Fairchild ring from his finger, and folded his hand around it. “It’s – there’s love in it. It means love. And friendship. Devotion. It can be – it can be gay, but it isn’t always.”

   _Beloved friend._ “I like it,” Jace murmured. _“Aikane.”_ It tasted right.

   Simon stared down at his fist, the one holding the ring. “We haven’t talked about – about me,” he blurted. “What’s wrong with me. What I did, at, at Renwicks. And when I was coming to find you.”

   “Do we need to?” Jace walked forward, softly, because now Simon was the one who might startle and bolt. Might be unable to bear it.

   “I don’t know. Maybe? I scared myself that night, Jace. I don’t – I don’t know what I can do.” He was watching Jace now, his eyes dark with something hungry – hungry and a little afraid, but wanting so _much._

   “We’ll figure it out,” Jace said softly. His heart was pounding. He thought he could hear Simon’s, too, racing to the same jolt-shocked rhythm. “All of it. I don’t care, Simon.”

_I love you._

   Simon shivered. “I don’t care either,” he said hoarsely.

   _I love you too._

   Jace smiled. “Besides,” he added with a smirk, “I’m a Shadowhunter. I don’t scare easily.”

   Simon laughed – a nervous laugh, maybe, a little strained, but real. And when it stopped, he turned his hand over and opened it to the ring lying on his palm.

   “Your blood is my blood,” he whispered.

   A dart of something hot and unbearably sweet cut through Jace at those words, so that for a second his lips wouldn’t obey him. “Your war is my war,” he said huskily.

   “Let our families be joined in the light,” Simon murmured, and the promise slid smoothly off his tongue, as if he’d been raised to it. He picked up the Fairchild ring and held it to Jace’s left hand. After hesitating a moment over which finger, he touched it to Jace’s middle fingertip. “And stand side by side against the darkness.”

   It didn’t matter that they came from the same family, didn’t matter that they really were of the same blood. The words were like a spell, raising energy into the room; soft, electrical energy that built and built until Jace was sure there were sparks emanating from his skin. “And let the shadows howl with despair, for together we are stronger.” He pushed – God, _Raziel_ – he pushed his ring over Simon’s finger.

   Simon did the same, sliding the Fairchild ring onto Jace’s hand. “Together we are whole,” he said softly, and it was a promise, it was a vow, and then his face came closer and his mouth was pressed to Jace’s.

   And it was so right.

   The chain of his necklace slipped from his grasp. It made no sound on the carpeted floor as his hand – shaking a little with the new weight on it – slid into Simon’s hair, into the dark locks, Simon grabbing hold of Jace’s shirt and their lips parting, open, hungry, desperate. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, _I don’t care_ , this could never be wrong, being pressed so close with starlight under your skin, trying so hard to become one thing, to taste the diamond-fire and woodsmoke of another person’s soul – how could it be wrong, how could anything this good ever be a sin?

   Hands found their way under shirts and it was like being swept away, caught in a current too great to fight when you wanted to drown; fingertips on skin, nails, the warm slide of tongues and lips and the knife-sharp thrill of teeth, every bite echoing in Jace’s knees and making them weak. This, this body, this one, this mind-heart-soul inside it; Jace wanted it, wanted _him,_ Simon, too great for words, clutching at Simon’s hips and dragging him closer, one of them groaning and both of them, both of them drowning –

   Jace stumbled suddenly, and landed on the bed, breathless. Simon had turned them around somehow but Jace couldn’t complain, not with Simon pulling his shirt over his head and dropping it to the floor and his face, his _eyes_ as he climbed on top of Jace, straddled him, took Jace’s mouth with fierce, desperate craving. He was half-naked now and glorious, all of him, Jace’s hands pulled along in a riptide over Simon’s body, drinking him in and it was too good, too much, the solid certainty of Simon’s arousal pressed hard against his own, rocking like waves, like tides, inexorable and unstoppable and Simon’s hands on him, greedy and needy, raking over and under his shirt, his hips, his neck –

   Simon’s lips left Jace’s and a soft, pleading noise came from Jace’s throat unbidden, but Simon didn’t leave; he was kissing Jace’s chin and cheek and jaw, his neck, pulling Jace’s head back with a fist in his hair and Jace groaned, bucking upwards, grabbing Simon’s ass and pulling him down in the same motion. Simon gasped against his ear, shocked, pleasured, and Jace stole the opportunity, tugged his hair from Simon’s fingers and set his teeth in Simon’s throat; _mine, mine,_ shark teeth and coral and Simon’s cry intoxicates, addicts and he needs more than this, so much more, Simon’s fingers raking through his hair and nuzzling, pleading-demanding, “Jace, Jace your _shirt_ , get it _off,”_ and it’s impossible to deny that voice. Jace shudders and obeys, one last lick to Simon’s throat and he pulls away, leaving a beautiful red mark behind _(mine)_ and then Simon’s helping him, the Morgenstern ring flashing as he grabs the bottom of Jace’s shirt and pulls it up. They help-hinder, clumsy, and then mouth-to-mouth because they can’t breathe, they’re drowning, they need this, this is _right_ , every touch and sound and taste of it is what Jace has been needing his entire life and he never knew, he never knew and now he’ll never let it go.

   There’s no hesitation, no wondering, no pause to ask questions; he’s never been closer to anyone in his life and it’s almost as if he can hear Simon’s thoughts, Simon’s want. Except that there’s no words, only bliss, only the waves breaking and sighing and crashing over them again, again and again, fingers fumbling with buttons and zippers, seeking skin, moving, moving and moving ah, Seraphs –

  Abruptly Simon’s hand was on his chest, shoving him down, and Jace went with no thought of disobeying. Simon’s eyes were wild, an ocean storm roaring and crashing there and Jace ached to pull him down, for more of those shudderingly good kisses. Instead he could only watch, dazed, as Simon pushed down his jeans and boxers and Jace had never seen him naked before, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the glint of Simon’s ring on his hand, the hand sliding down his hip and thigh and calf as he discarded the last of the clothes. _My ring, my_ aikane _, my Simon,_ and he knelt on all fours like – Raziel, he was glorious, shameless, not one hint of embarrassment marring the desire in his face as he came back to Jace and Jace took him, all of him, pulled him down and licked into his mouth and there was an insane thrill to it, running his hands over Simon’s naked body while he was still in his jeans. His palms slid over Simon’s hips, over his ass and Simon groaned into his mouth, thrusting against him and Jace jerked at the charring rush of it, Simon’s hard cock grinding against Jace’s stomach, the physical proof that Simon needed this, wanted this as badly as he did –

   _Brother,_ Jace thought, and shoved it away, because it wasn’t true. Not in any way that mattered. How could it matter, how could he care with Simon so close, so near to him, their hearts in sync?

   _Lover,_ he thought instead, breathing Simon’s breath; _lover,_ aikane, _Simon_ , Simon wearing his ring, his _armask_ _ō_ , skin to skin and heart to heart, he could feel Simon’s pulse beating against his own chest, tied to him with silver and gold –

   “Can we – can I – ” Words failed him, panted and hoarse, his breath stolen by a single glance of Simon’s sea-storm eyes.

   “Can we what?” Heated amusement, an almost-mocking smirk and Jace wants to be annoyed at the teasing or maybe laugh but he can’t, it feels like being pummelled against a rocky shore, he _needs_ –

   “I need to be inside you,” he husked, too far gone for anything sweeter, subtler, _“please.”_

   Simon kisses the word from his lips, drinks it in. “Do you even know how?” he teases, but his voice is low and it makes Jace’s stomach jump.

   He can’t speak, so he just nods, and Simon’s smirk melts into something softer but no less sexy, urgent, hungry. “Yes,” he whispers, but he moves, instead, clambers over Jace and reaches for something in the drawer of the bedside table. One of the coffees falls and spills but neither of them care; Jace drags Simon back to him and Simon laughs, hoarse and exhilarated, the kind of sound Jace has heard when someone nearly dies and _your blood is my blood_. Simon spills what he gathered on the bed beside them and he and Jace tug Jace’s trousers off, off and down and Simon dips his head and licks a stripe up Jace’s cock as it comes free and Jace arched with a strangled sound, his hands flying to Simon’s hair. He nearly came just from that, from the playful wet contact that isn’t playful at all, from the puff of Simon’s laughter.

   “You’re vibrating,” Simon murmured, nuzzling Jace’s thigh. “If you come before you’re inside me I’m going to be _very_ annoyed with you.”

   As if that makes it easier, as if that does anything but make Jace desperately bite his own tongue, fighting not to plummet over the edge just from the picture Simon makes for him.

   Simon slides up Jace’s body again, smug and fond. He brushes his lips lightly over Jace’s and settles on his knees, one hand by Jace’s shoulder. He picks up something – something he took from the drawer, a foil packet – and tears it open with his teeth, not neatly. Something clear and slightly viscous spills over his fingers, and after a second Jace recognises it because no teenage boy is unaware of how much _better_ getting off is with something to smooth out the friction.

   Simon awkwardly covers his fingers in it – one-handed, and it’s the hand with the ring, now gleaming slickly with a smear of lube – and then, eyes locked with Jace’s, he reaches down, and back, between his legs –

   Simon moans softly, his eyelids falling half-shut, and Jace grabs the base of his own cock and squeezes because that _sound_ , and the abrupt realisation of what exactly Simon is _doing_ – it shouldn’t be hot, it should be strange, gross and unhygienic, surely, but his cock is throbbing against his fingertips like a second heart and Simon’s lips are parted, just a little, and it’s _unbearable._ If he moves, if he even twitches, he’s going to humiliate himself by coming immediately, uselessly, and Simon’s hand – Jace can see his wrist moving, see the scar there gleam as he slowly thrusts, and of course, it makes sense. It does. Jace knows what goes where from whispered slurs and ancient Greek texts, but he’d never thought it through, never _needed_ to until this, here, now, _Simon_.

   Of course Simon has to stretch himself out. Of course he needs lube.

   “Jace,” Simon breathes, and his eyes fall fully closed. “God, _Jace.”_

   On the other hand, if he doesn’t hurry up, Jace is going to expire. “I’m here,” he says hoarsely, reaching up with one hand for Simon’s face. Simon nuzzles into the touch thoughtlessly and there’s something about it – something tender and instinctive, vulnerable and soft, that’s like a fist around Jace’s heart. Ash in his eyes. “I’m right here, _aikane.”_

   Simon’s hips buck at that, and the tip of his cock is damp, gleaming. Jace wants to touch it and he does; lets go of his own to wrap his fingers around Simon’s. It’s soft, so incredibly soft and solid and Simon’s gasp melts into a moan and this, by the Angel _this_ – the helplessness on Simon’s face as he thrusts into the loose grip of Jace’s hand and then back onto his own fingers, his lips swollen and red and open, and Jace slides Simon’s pre-come over his cock, makes it easier, tears those _sounds_ out of Simon –

   “I’m done, I’m done, God Jace _please,”_ Simon’s babbling, eyes wide open now and frenzied, frantic, his pupils blown to black holes and nebulae. “Please, _please_ – ”

   Jace hisses, lust and fire, and shoves himself upright, pulls Simon into his lap. “Like this?” he asks roughly, and Simon’s nodding, yes, yes, carding his hands through Jace’s hair and there’s still lube on his fingers but Jace doesn’t care, can’t care, kisses those scarred wrists and the _enkeli_ on Simon’s forearm and his mouth, his mouth sweet as wine and rich with lightning. Simon brings his oily fingers to Jace’s cock and Jace hisses again, bites his nails into Simon’s hips to hold himself back as Simon lubes him, too, yes it makes sense just get it _done_. Urgency, screaming at them, the waves growing larger and larger, the currents ripping them away and closer and Jace lifts Simon just enough and Simon helps, knees under himself, still holding Jace’s cock, guiding it, there’s too much to take in sound taste feel sight sight sight, Simon’s cock against Jace’s stomach and his free arm around Jace’s neck, yes, just, like, _that_ –

   There’s a noise. Maybe it’s one of them or maybe it’s both, there’s no telling, Jace’s mind is gone. That’s it, he’s drowned, there’s no more, nothing but the slick, _tight_ heat sliding down over his cock inch by inch and he buries his face against Simon’s throat and whimpers, or moans, or just screams, because it feels so good but it’s more than that, it’s not just some girl it’s _Simon_ and they’re so close, Jace is _inside him_ and Simon is whispering curses and invocations and his voice is so beautifully broken, utterly wrecked. Jace kisses his neck and shoulder and collarbone and Simon is shaking, they both are, stunned by it, the blissful intimacy of it, and Jace’s eyes sting and it’s hard to breathe. Impossible to breathe in anything but salt and seawater.

   Simon takes a moment and Jace gives it to him – he needs a few seconds for himself anyway. He murmurs Simon’s name over and over against his skin, _Simon_ and _aikane_ and _ya’aburnee_ , disjointed and heartfelt; his hands stroke softly over Simon’s back and sides for beat after long, heavy beat.

   Finally Simon’s hips twitch. Jace gasps at the feel of it. He bites his lip the second time, and then bites Simon’s, and soothes the sting with his tongue, laps into Simon’s mouth after and they’re moving, slow at first, tiny waves lapping at a summer beach and every second is nearly too much. Simon, _Simon_ , how can this be, it’s too much, _your war is my war,_ Simon moving over him, looped arms around Jace’s neck. He’s a damned incubus and he has Jace mesmerised, the pleasure in his face, his half-lidded eyes – he looks satisfied even as he’s still desperate, panting and purring and kissing Jace messily, clumsily, rising and falling and fucking himself on Jace’s cock and it drives Jace _mad._ It makes him want to beg, even as he doesn’t know what to beg for; faster, harder, more, more, more. If he could climb into Simon’s soul he would, but he doesn’t know how, can only do this, can only meet Simon’s thrusts – gently at first, then with more force as Simon murmurs approval, as he rakes his fingertips over Jace’s nipples and torso, grinds his cock into Jace’s abdomen – harder, frantically.

   They kiss, and Jace can almost hear music, can feel it in Simon’s fingers and taste it on his lips. Music, Simon hums with music, with a song that Jace can’t make out but that plays over his bones and makes him buck into Simon’s body, makes Simon half-cry his name, _yes, yes, yes –_

And suddenly Jace can’t take it a second longer. He wraps his arm tight around Simon’s waist and flips them, swings them over so that Simon falls beneath him, still impaled, still full, still flushed and kissable and all Jace’s, all perfect. But almost instantly –

   Jace has only been with girls before, he didn’t _think_ – he sees the flicker of discomfort pass over Simon’s face and no, this position isn’t going to work, not like this, but _stopping_ – stopping is utterly unthinkable.

   “Idiot,” Simon pants, but he doesn’t look annoyed, only impatient, only hungry, “look, wait, like this.”

   He pushes Jace away, very gently. It doesn’t feel like a rejection but it _does_ feel like a sin when Jace’s cock slips free of Simon’s body. They both make a sound, and neither can tell who made it first.

   Quickly, Simon turns over, pushes up onto his hands and knees. He spreads his legs and his hole is shiny with lube, and so small. Jace shudders, remembering it clamping down on his cock just seconds ago, and then Simon is urging him, needy and impatient, “Come on, stop staring and _fuck_ me, Jace!”

   Who could disobey?

   Jace mounts him and pushes back in, smoothly, only just managing not to slam in deep _(he wants to, he wants to so badly)_. Simon moans and instantly pushes back, taking the last few inches and for a minute it’s tricky, they can’t work out a rhythm when they both need so much, need _now_ , please, oh God oh Raziel _please_. Simon hangs his head and pants and Jace misses seeing his expression but then they click, Simon’s hips rolling with his, in and out, sliding, perfect, _perfect_ –

   Simon lifts his hips a little, and pushes back a little harder – and cries out, jerking viciously, slamming himself back on Jace’s cock. His nails rake the sheets and it’s impossible to resist; Jace clutches at his thighs, his stomach, pulling him back hard, and harder, and Simon moans and spreads his legs wider until he’s barely upright, until his cheek is against the pillow and he’s begging, the only word Jace’s name but it’s still begging, pleading, Jace snapping his hips harder and harder to try and give it to him and it’s, oh, drowning, riptide, tsunami, Simon’s hand fisting his cock desperately and Jace reaches for the other – grasps Simon’s other hand on the pillow and laces their fingers, slamming in and in and their rings click together, a silver note as they pant and groan and they’re drowning, drowning.

   The tsunami breaks. Simon comes first, onto the sheets beneath him with Jace’s name on his lips, and Jace can’t tell if it’s that or the way Simon tightens up that pulls Jace in with him. Their fingers squeeze each other and the two rings kissing as Jace snaps his hips, hard, so hard, until he’s worried Simon will break but Simon only moans. Jace spills inside him, as deep as he can get, and the bliss stretches on and on, sweet and more satisfying than anything he’s ever known.

   Feeling it end is like being tossed up on a beach after a shipwreck. Neither of them can move. Neither of them care about the mess. Jace doesn’t even pull out, and Simon doesn’t protest, even though it makes things a little awkward as they roll onto their sides, spooned together. Jace wraps one arm around Simon’s waist, and cushions the other under Simon’s head.

   He can’t stay all evening. He can’t stay the night; someone will wonder where he is. Alec will have felt some of this, or all of it, and wonder what he’s been up to. Jace doesn’t care. For now, he’s here, and not going anywhere.

   He brushes soft, warm kisses over Simon’s bare shoulder and neck, and wonders why it makes his throat tight with something helpless when Simon sleepily murmurs his name.

   There’s nothing to say. It’s all been said. They know it.

   They don’t care.

*

   Simon’s body sang with warm ripples of bliss, nuzzled up against Jace’s in a way he’d stopped daring to dream of. But the dreams had hold of him now. The dreams were real.

   As he slipped deeper into them – as he fell asleep, with Jace’s soft breathing in his ear and his arm around him – he thought he heard, very far away, a half-familiar voice.

   Somewhere, a young man was laughing.

 

* * *

 

NOTES

 

The songs in this chapter are

Time Bomb – All Time Low

and

Never Stop – Safetysuit

If you are not already following my tumblr – siavahdainthemoon – keep an eye out there the next few days, because I will be posting the soundtrack and e-book of City of Shadows there within the next week or two.

Because THAT'S A WRAP, YOU GUYS!!! I hope very much that you’ve all enjoyed the journey. I know I can’t believe we got this far! Thank you to EVERYONE who read and enjoyed City of Shadows, all the lovely commenters and all the lovely lurkers. I LOVE YOU ALL. <3

Thanks most of all to my beta, Cassie, for being UNSPEAKABLY AMAZING, and my hubby for putting up with me all those nights when I did nothing but type and flail. I LOVE YOU BOTH, GUYS <3

And yes, barring total disasters, there will be sequels. So if you’re not following my ff or ao3 account, YOU SHOULD BE.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Audacity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449316) by [Starrie_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf)
  * [Publicity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449502) by [Starrie_Wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf)
  * [The Lightbringer Princes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3980413) by [Siavahda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siavahda/pseuds/Siavahda)




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